Prominent UK attorneys have issued warnings about a political “downward spiral”, after a Tory lawmaker seen as a future party leader suggested that large numbers of lawfully resident households must be removed from the country.
Controversial Statement on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a party enforcer, stated that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their right to stay cancelled, to ensure the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, later retreated from these comments last Thursday.
While the leader initially said the remarks were “broadly in line” with party policy, she later returned to existing policy that only withdraw permanent residency status if someone has broken the law. Nevertheless, the statement has sparked concern for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and belonging to a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, leaders across political parties have adopted anti-immigration language and echoed policies that were once seen as extreme. Lately, a Reform UK leader complained about “every advert” seemingly featuring “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the group’s head, the figurehead, pledged to eliminate the main route for migrants to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK risked becoming an “island of strangers” without tougher immigration policies.
“It’s hard to believe that the ramifications of that statement were not fully understood, and it was appealing to a specific group,” said a leading barrister, who has examined claims of racism within the opposition party.
The barrister, whose family emigrated from the West Indies, said Lam’s comments were a “thinly disguised keep Britain white campaign”. The leading barrister said the current political discourse was an “utter condemnation” that someone like himself, from generations of people who had served the country, should still experience anxiety.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” continued Forde. “It’s desperate to see the opposition feeling the sole solution to Reform is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually talk about the positives of immigration.
“The language has to evolve and has to be truthful.”
National Mood and Far-Right Activity
Backing for the party has increased in the surveys, and extremist demonstrations have drawn thousands to London, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the situation are similar to far-right marches from previous eras and fearful the UK is “regressing” as politicians target migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of victims at the heart of the Windrush scandal, in which Britons from the former empire residing in the UK lawfully were mistakenly categorized as illegal migrants.
The lawyer said her father, who emigrated to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the present debate. Lately, her child has asked whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Now we’re getting young people in their twenties and thirties who have got two generations ahead of them, born in Britain, feeling less than,” said the attorney.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a acceptable political direction for many groups,” she continued. “The tenets of this, the tentacles of it spread so far when you start talking about deporting and expelling people who are legally in the country, and millions of them as well. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
Individuals with permanent residency, or with partners who hold this status, have shared that the recent policies floated by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and characterized the broader political anti-migrant discourse as discriminatory, alarming and hostile.
One individual, a person with dual nationality living in the city with his family, said the recent surge of Reform in the polls had pushed him to get his British citizenship. For the last several years he has gone through the procedure of securing ILR – at a huge financial cost – after moving to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the proposed policies be implemented, he worries his family would be split up.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said the man, in his thirties. “Who knows how this unfolds in two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no issues”, Darwazeh has been concerned by the increase of St George’s flags in his neighbourhood, a practice that has been widely co-opted by the extremist groups and immigration opponents. In the future, though the household has no desire to leave, they may think about it if the hostility continues.
“I find it really odd that in a country where immigrants are required, nobody is promoting a beneficial narrative about migration at all,” he added. “I consider the demonisation very odd and frightening, for the future.”
