Prominent UK attorneys have raised alarms about a political “downward spiral”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a future party leader suggested that significant quantities of lawfully resident households must be deported.
Controversial Statement on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a Tory whip, stated that individuals with legal status 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 distanced herself from these comments recently.
While Badenoch initially said the statement were “generally consistent” with party policy, she later reverted 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 signal of “dangerous times” and part of a larger political discourse.
Escalating Pattern of Immigration Criticism
In the past few months, politicians across various groups have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed policies that were once seen as extreme. Lately, a political party leader expressed dissatisfaction about “every advert” seemingly featuring “black and Asian people”, and in September, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to eliminate the primary pathway for immigration to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “island of strangers” without tougher immigration policies.
“I don’t accept that the implications of that phrase were not comprehended, and it was appealing to a specific group,” said a leading barrister, who has investigated claims of discrimination within the opposition party.
Forde, whose family migrated from the West Indies, said the remarks were a “thinly disguised 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,” continued Forde. “It’s alarming to see Labour feeling the sole solution to the rival party is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually discuss the benefits of immigration.
“The rhetoric has to change and has to be accurate.”
Public Sentiment and Extremist Movements
Support for Reform has surged in the polls, and far-right marches have drawn thousands to the capital, leaving many British people of colour feeling the situation are similar to far-right marches from decades past and fearful the UK is “going backwards” as politicians target migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has acted for hundreds of victims at the heart of the residency controversy, in which UK citizens from the former empire residing in the UK legally were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
McKenzie said her father, who emigrated to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the current discourse. Lately, her daughter has questioned whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Now we’re getting young people in their twenties and thirties who have got multiple generations ahead of them, born in Britain, experiencing insecurity,” said McKenzie.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for many groups,” she added. “The tenets of this, the reach of it spread so far when you start talking about removing and removing people who are lawfully resident, and millions of them as well. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
People with permanent residency, or with partners who hold this status, have shared that the recent policies floated by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and characterized the broader political anti-migrant discourse as discriminatory, alarming and hostile.
One individual, a dual British-Jordanian citizen living in the city with his wife and children, said the growing support of the party in the surveys had pushed him to get his UK passport. For the past six years he has gone through the process of securing ILR – at a huge financial cost – after relocating to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the proposed policies be implemented, he worries his family would be split up.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said Darwazeh, in his thirties. “It’s uncertain how this unfolds in the coming years.”
While day to day, he has “no issues”, he has been concerned by the proliferation of St George’s flags in his area, a trend that has been widely adopted by the far-right and immigration opponents. In the future, though the family has no desire to leave, they may think about it if the hostility continues.
“It’s strange that in a nation where migrants are required, nobody is promoting a positive story about migration at all,” he added. “I just find the demonisation very peculiar and terrifying, for the future.”
