Leading UK legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Tory lawmaker seen as a future party leader suggested that significant quantities of legally settled families must be deported.
Divisive Remarks on Residency Rights
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister 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 Conservative leader, the party head, later retreated from Lam’s statement recently.
While the leader initially said the statement were “generally consistent” with official stance, she later returned to current rules that only withdraw permanent residency status if someone has committed a crime. Nevertheless, the statement has raised alarms for many as a signal of “perilous periods” and belonging to a broader political conversation.
Escalating Pattern of Immigration Criticism
In the past few months, politicians across political parties have adopted anti-immigration language and echoed policies that were once considered fringe. Most recently, a political party leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly including “ethnic minorities”, and in September, the party’s leader, Nigel Farage, pledged to abolish the main route for immigration to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK faced the danger of 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 specific group,” said Martin Forde KC, who has investigated claims of discrimination within Labour.
The barrister, whose parents migrated from the Caribbean, 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 feel insecure.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” continued Forde. “It’s alarming to see Labour feeling the sole solution to Reform is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually talk about the benefits of immigration.
“The rhetoric has to evolve and has to be accurate.”
National Mood and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has increased in the surveys, and extremist demonstrations have attracted large crowds to the capital, leaving many British people of colour feeling the situation are reminiscent of far-right marches from previous eras and fearful the UK is “going backwards” as elected officials focus on migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of affected individuals at the heart of the Windrush scandal, in which UK citizens from the former empire residing in the UK legally were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
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. Recently, her child has questioned whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Currently we see kids in their twenties and thirties who have got multiple generations ahead of them, UK-born, feeling less than,” said the attorney.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a acceptable political direction for most political parties,” she continued. “The tenets of this, the tentacles of it extend widely when you start talking about deporting and removing people who are legally in the country, and millions of them as well. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
Individuals with permanent residency, or with spouses who hold this status, have expressed that the new proposals floated by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as racist, frightening and unwelcoming.
One individual, a person with dual nationality residing in the city with his family, said the growing support of the party in the surveys had pushed him to get his British citizenship. For the past six years he has gone through the procedure of obtaining ILR – at a huge financial cost – after relocating to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the proposed policies be enacted, he fears his family would be split up.
“It’s simple 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 problems”, Darwazeh has been concerned by the increase of St George’s flags in his area, a trend that has been widely adopted by the extremist groups and immigration opponents. In the future, though the household has no wish to leave, they may think about it if the hostility persists.
“I find it really odd that in a country where migrants are needed, nobody is promoting a positive story about immigration at all,” he added. “I consider the demonisation very peculiar and frightening, long-term.”
