Prominent British attorneys have raised alarms about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Tory lawmaker seen as a potential leadership candidate suggested that large numbers of legally settled families must be removed from the country.
Divisive Remarks on Residency Rights
The MP, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a party enforcer, stated that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their permission to remain cancelled, to ensure the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, later retreated from these comments last Thursday.
While Badenoch initially said the statement were “generally consistent” with party policy, she later reverted to existing policy that only withdraw indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has committed a crime. However, the statement has raised alarms for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and belonging to a broader political conversation.
Escalating Pattern of Immigration Criticism
In recent months, leaders across various groups have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed proposals that were once considered fringe. Lately, a Reform UK leader complained about “every advert” seemingly including “black and Asian people”, and in September, the group’s head, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for immigration 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 implications of that statement were not fully understood, and it was targeting a particular audience,” said a leading barrister, who has investigated claims of discrimination within Labour.
Forde, whose parents emigrated from the West Indies, said Lam’s comments were a barely concealed racial purity campaign”. The legal expert said the present political debate 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,” added the lawyer. “It’s alarming to see the opposition feeling the only answer to the rival party is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually discuss the positives of immigration.
“The language has to evolve and has to be accurate.”
National Mood and Extremist Movements
Backing for the party has surged in the surveys, and far-right marches have drawn thousands to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the situation are similar to far-right marches from previous eras and concerned the UK is “regressing” as elected officials target migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has represented hundreds of affected individuals at the centre of the Windrush scandal, in which Britons from the former empire living in the UK lawfully were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
The lawyer said her parent, who moved to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the current discourse. Recently, her daughter has questioned whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Currently we see young people in their twenties and thirties who have got two generations ahead of them, born in Britain, experiencing insecurity,” said the attorney.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for most political parties,” she continued. “The tenets of this, the reach 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. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
People with ILR status, or with partners who hold this status, have expressed that the recent policies floated by political figures have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as racist, frightening and hostile.
One individual, a person with dual nationality living in the city with his family, said the recent surge of the party in the polls had motivated him to get his UK passport. For the past six years he has gone through the procedure of obtaining permanent residency – at a significant expense – after moving to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the suggested changes be implemented, he fears his family would be separated.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said Darwazeh, in his thirties. “It’s uncertain how this plays out in two, three years.”
While in daily life, he has “no problems”, Darwazeh has been concerned by the increase of St George’s flags in his area, a practice that has been widely co-opted by the far-right and immigration opponents. Long-term, though the family has no desire to leave, they may consider it if the hostility continues.
“It’s strange that in a country where immigrants are needed, no one’s actually selling a positive story about immigration at all,” he remarked. “I just find the vilification very odd and frightening, for the future.”
