Leading British attorneys have issued warnings about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Conservative MP seen as a future party leader suggested that significant quantities of lawfully resident households must be deported.
Divisive Remarks on Residency Rights
The MP, a shadow Home Office minister 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 predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, later retreated from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While Badenoch initially said the remarks were “broadly in line” with party policy, she later returned to existing policy that only revoke permanent residency status if someone has broken the law. Nevertheless, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a indication of “perilous periods” and part of a broader political conversation.
Escalating Pattern of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In the past few months, leaders across political parties have adopted anti-immigration language and repeated proposals that were once seen as extreme. Most recently, a Reform UK leader expressed dissatisfaction about “every advert” seemingly featuring “ethnic minorities”, and in September, the group’s head, Nigel Farage, pledged to eliminate the main route for immigration to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader 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 appealing to a specific group,” said a leading barrister, who has examined claims of discrimination within the opposition party.
The barrister, whose family emigrated from the West Indies, said Lam’s comments were a barely concealed keep Britain white campaign”. The leading barrister said the current political discourse was an “absolute indictment” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had served the country, should still feel insecure.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” added the lawyer. “It’s alarming to see the opposition feeling the sole solution to Reform is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually talk about the positives of immigration.
“The language has to evolve and has to be truthful.”
Public Sentiment and Extremist Movements
Support for Reform has surged in the surveys, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to the capital, leaving many British people of colour feeling the situation are similar to extremist rallies from decades past and concerned the UK is “going backwards” as politicians target migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has acted for hundreds of victims at the centre of the residency controversy, in which UK citizens from the Commonwealth living in the UK lawfully were classed wrongly as unauthorized immigrants.
McKenzie said her parent, who emigrated to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the current discourse. Recently, her child has asked whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Currently we see kids in their twenties and thirties who have got two generations ahead of them, UK-born, experiencing insecurity,” said McKenzie.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for many groups,” she added. “The principles here, 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. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
Individuals with ILR status, or with partners who hold this status, have expressed that the new proposals floated by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and described the wider political debate as discriminatory, frightening and hostile.
One individual, a person with dual nationality living in Manchester with his wife and children, said the recent surge of the party in the polls had pushed him to get his UK passport. For the past six years he has gone through the process of obtaining permanent residency – at a huge financial cost – after relocating to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the proposed policies be implemented, he fears his family would be separated.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said the man, in his thirties. “It’s uncertain how this unfolds in two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no issues”, Darwazeh has been alarmed by the proliferation of national symbols in his area, a trend that has been widely adopted by the extremist groups and anti-immigration protesters. Long-term, though the family has no desire to leave, they may think about it if the unfriendliness continues.
“It’s strange that in a nation where migrants are required, nobody is promoting a positive story about immigration at all,” he added. “I just find the demonisation very odd and frightening, long-term.”
