Prominent British legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Conservative MP considered a potential leadership candidate suggested that significant quantities of lawfully resident households must be deported.
Divisive Remarks on Residency Rights
Katie Lam, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a Tory whip, stated that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their right to stay revoked, to ensure the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Tory leader, the party head, later distanced herself from these comments last Thursday.
While Badenoch initially said the remarks were “generally consistent” with party policy, she later reverted to existing policy that only revoke permanent residency status if someone has committed a crime. However, the proposal has sparked concern for many as a signal of “perilous periods” and belonging to a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, leaders across political parties have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed policies that were once seen as extreme. Most recently, a political party leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly featuring “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the party’s leader, Nigel Farage, pledged to eliminate the primary pathway for immigration to obtain 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 comprehended, and it was appealing to a particular audience,” said a leading barrister, who has investigated claims of discrimination within the opposition party.
Forde, whose parents emigrated from the West Indies, said the remarks were a “thinly disguised keep Britain white campaign”. The legal expert said the current political discourse was an “absolute indictment” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still experience anxiety.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” added the lawyer. “It’s alarming to see Labour feeling the only answer to Reform 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
Support for Reform has surged in the surveys, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to London, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the circumstances are similar to far-right marches from previous eras and fearful the UK is “going backwards” as politicians focus on migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has represented hundreds of affected individuals at the heart of the Windrush scandal, in which UK citizens from the Commonwealth living in the UK legally were mistakenly categorized as illegal migrants.
McKenzie said her parent, who moved to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the present debate. Recently, her child has asked whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Now we’re getting young people in their twenties and thirties who have got multiple generations ahead of them, UK-born, feeling less than,” said the attorney.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for many groups,” she continued. “The principles here, the tentacles of it spread so far when you start talking about deporting and expelling people who are lawfully resident, and vast numbers of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
People with permanent residency, or with partners who hold this status, have shared that the new proposals floated by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as discriminatory, frightening and hostile.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a dual British-Jordanian citizen living in the city with his family, said the growing support of Reform in the surveys had motivated him to get his British citizenship. For the past six years he has gone through the procedure of securing permanent residency – at a significant expense – after moving to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the suggested changes be implemented, he worries his family would be separated.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said Darwazeh, 37. “Who knows how this unfolds in the coming years.”
While in daily life, he has “no issues”, Darwazeh has been concerned by the increase of national symbols in his neighbourhood, a trend that has been widely co-opted by the extremist groups and immigration opponents. Long-term, though the household has no wish to leave, they may think about it if the hostility continues.
“I find it really odd that in a nation where immigrants are needed, no one’s actually selling a positive story about immigration at all,” he added. “I consider the demonisation very odd and terrifying, for the future.”
