Prominent British attorneys have raised alarms about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Conservative MP considered a potential leadership candidate proposed that significant quantities of legally settled families must be removed from the country.
Divisive Remarks on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister and a Tory whip, stated that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their permission to remain revoked, to ensure the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, later retreated from these comments recently.
While the leader initially said the remarks were “generally consistent” with official stance, she later returned to existing policy that only withdraw permanent residency status if someone has broken the law. Nevertheless, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a indication of “perilous periods” and belonging to a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, leaders across various groups have absorbed anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed proposals that were once considered fringe. Most recently, a political party leader complained about “every advert” seemingly featuring “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the group’s head, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for migrants to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK risked becoming an “nation of foreigners” without tougher immigration policies.
“It’s hard to believe that the ramifications of that phrase were not comprehended, and it was targeting a particular audience,” said Martin Forde KC, who has examined claims of discrimination within Labour.
Forde, whose family migrated from the West Indies, said Lam’s comments were a “thinly disguised keep Britain white campaign”. The legal expert said the present political debate was an “absolute indictment” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still feel insecure.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” continued the lawyer. “It’s desperate to see Labour 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 rhetoric has to change and has to be accurate.”
Public Sentiment and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has increased in the surveys, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to the capital, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances 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 an immigration lawyer, who has acted for hundreds of affected individuals at the centre of the Windrush scandal, in which UK citizens from the former empire living in the UK lawfully were mistakenly categorized as unauthorized immigrants.
The lawyer said her father, who moved to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the present debate. Lately, her child has questioned whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Currently we see kids in their 20s and 30s who have got multiple generations ahead of them, born in Britain, feeling less than,” said McKenzie.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a acceptable political direction for most political parties,” she added. “The principles here, the reach of it spread so far when you start talking about removing and expelling people who are legally in the country, and vast numbers of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
Individuals with permanent residency, or with spouses who hold this status, have shared that the new proposals suggested by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as racist, alarming and hostile.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a person with dual nationality living in Manchester with his wife and children, said the growing support of Reform in the polls had pushed him to get his British citizenship. For the last several years he has gone through the process of obtaining permanent residency – at a huge financial cost – after moving to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the proposed policies be implemented, he fears his family would be split up.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said the man, in his thirties. “Who knows how this plays out in two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no problems”, he has been alarmed by the proliferation of St George’s flags in his area, a trend that has been widely co-opted by the far-right and anti-immigration protesters. In the future, though the family has no desire 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 beneficial narrative about migration at all,” he remarked. “I just find the vilification very odd and frightening, long-term.”
