Leading UK attorneys have issued warnings about a political “downward spiral”, after a Tory lawmaker seen as a potential leadership candidate suggested that large numbers of lawfully resident households must be deported.
Controversial Statement on Legal Status
The MP, a shadow Home Office minister and a party enforcer, remarked that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their right to stay revoked, to guarantee the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, later retreated from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While Badenoch initially said the statement were “generally consistent” with party policy, she later reverted to current rules that only revoke permanent residency status if someone has broken the law. Nevertheless, the statement has sparked concern for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and belonging to a larger political discourse.
Escalating Pattern of Immigration Criticism
In the past few months, leaders across political parties have absorbed anti-migrant rhetoric and repeated policies that were once seen as extreme. Most recently, a Reform UK leader complained about “every advert” seemingly including “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for migrants to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK risked becoming an “island of strangers” without stricter border controls.
“It’s hard to believe that the implications of that statement were not comprehended, and it was appealing to a particular audience,” said Martin Forde KC, who has examined claims of discrimination within the opposition party.
The barrister, whose parents emigrated from the West Indies, said the remarks were a “thinly disguised keep Britain white campaign”. The leading barrister said the present political debate was an “absolute indictment” that someone like himself, from 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 sole solution to the rival party is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually talk about the benefits of migration.
“The language has to change and has to be accurate.”
Public Sentiment and Extremist Movements
Support for Reform has surged in the surveys, and far-right marches have drawn thousands to London, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the circumstances are similar to far-right marches from previous eras and concerned the UK is “regressing” as elected officials focus on migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has acted for hundreds of victims at the heart of the residency controversy, in which Britons from the Commonwealth living in the UK legally were mistakenly categorized as unauthorized immigrants.
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 Caribbean passports.
“Currently we see kids in their 20s and 30s who have got two generations ahead of them, UK-born, experiencing insecurity,” said the attorney.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for most political parties,” she added. “The principles here, the tentacles of it spread so far when you start talking about deporting and expelling people who are lawfully resident, and millions of them as well. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
People with permanent residency, or with spouses who hold this status, have shared that the recent policies floated by political figures have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and described the wider political debate as racist, alarming and unwelcoming.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a dual British-Jordanian citizen living in Manchester with his family, said the growing support of Reform in the surveys had motivated him to get his UK passport. For the last several years he has gone through the process 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 easy for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said the man, 37. “Who knows how this unfolds in the coming years.”
While day to day, he has “no problems”, he has been alarmed by the increase of national symbols in his area, a practice that has been widely adopted by the far-right and immigration opponents. Long-term, though the family has no wish to leave, they may consider it if the unfriendliness continues.
“It’s strange that in a country where migrants are needed, no one’s actually selling a positive story about migration at all,” he added. “I consider the vilification very odd and frightening, long-term.”
