Leading British attorneys have issued warnings about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a potential leadership candidate suggested that large numbers of legally settled families must be removed from the country.
Divisive Remarks on Legal Status
The MP, a shadow Home Office minister and a Tory whip, remarked that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their right to stay cancelled, to ensure the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Conservative leader, the party head, later retreated from Lam’s statement recently.
While Badenoch initially said the statement were “broadly in line” with official stance, she later reverted to current rules that only revoke permanent residency status if someone has committed a crime. Nevertheless, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and belonging to a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Immigration Criticism
In the past few months, leaders across political parties have absorbed anti-migrant rhetoric and repeated proposals that were once seen as extreme. Lately, a Reform UK leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly featuring “ethnic minorities”, and in September, the party’s leader, Nigel Farage, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for immigration to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK risked becoming an “island of strangers” without tougher immigration policies.
“It’s hard to believe that the implications of that phrase were not comprehended, and it was appealing to a specific group,” said a leading barrister, who has investigated claims of discrimination within the opposition party.
The barrister, whose family migrated from the West Indies, said Lam’s comments were a “thinly disguised keep Britain white campaign”. The legal expert said the current political discourse was an “utter condemnation” that someone like himself, from generations of people who had served the country, should still feel insecure.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” added Forde. “It’s desperate to see the opposition feeling the only answer to the rival party is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually talk about the positives of migration.
“The language has to evolve and has to be accurate.”
National Mood and Far-Right Activity
Backing for the party has increased in the polls, and extremist demonstrations have attracted large crowds to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the situation are similar to extremist rallies from decades past and fearful the UK is “regressing” as politicians focus on migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has acted for hundreds of affected individuals at the centre of the Windrush scandal, in which Britons from the Commonwealth living in the UK legally were mistakenly categorized as unauthorized immigrants.
The lawyer said her father, who emigrated to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the present debate. Recently, her daughter has asked whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Currently we see young people in their twenties and thirties who have got two generations ahead of them, born in Britain, feeling less than,” said McKenzie.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for most political parties,” she continued. “The tenets of this, the tentacles of it extend widely when you start talking about removing and removing 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 spouses who hold this status, have expressed that the recent policies suggested by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and characterized the broader political anti-migrant discourse as discriminatory, frightening and hostile.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a person with dual nationality residing in Manchester with his family, said the recent surge of Reform in the surveys had pushed him to get his UK passport. For the past six years he has gone through the process of obtaining 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 separated.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said the man, 37. “Who knows how this unfolds in the coming years.”
While in daily life, he has “no issues”, he has been alarmed by the proliferation of national symbols in his neighbourhood, a practice that has been widely adopted by the far-right and immigration opponents. Long-term, though the family has no wish to leave, they may consider it if the unfriendliness persists.
“I find it really odd that in a nation where migrants are needed, nobody is promoting a beneficial narrative about migration at all,” he added. “I just find the demonisation very peculiar and terrifying, long-term.”
