Prominent British legal professionals have issued warnings about a political “downward spiral”, after a Conservative MP considered a future party leader suggested that large numbers of legally settled families must be removed from the country.
Divisive Remarks on Legal Status
The MP, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a party enforcer, remarked that individuals with legal status 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 recently.
While Badenoch initially said the statement were “broadly in line” with party policy, she later reverted to existing policy that only revoke permanent residency status if someone has committed a crime. However, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a signal of “perilous periods” and part of a larger political discourse.
Escalating Pattern of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, politicians across political parties have absorbed anti-migrant rhetoric and repeated policies that were once considered fringe. Most recently, a Reform UK leader complained about “every advert” seemingly featuring “black and Asian people”, and in September, the party’s leader, Nigel Farage, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for immigration to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader 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 specific group,” said Martin Forde KC, who has investigated claims of racism within Labour.
The barrister, whose family migrated from the West Indies, said Lam’s comments were a “thinly disguised keep Britain white campaign”. The leading barrister said the present political debate was an “utter condemnation” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still experience anxiety.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” continued Forde. “It’s desperate to see the opposition feeling the only answer to the rival party is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually talk about the benefits of migration.
“The language has to change and has to be truthful.”
Public Sentiment and Extremist Movements
Backing for the party has increased in the polls, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to London, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the situation are similar to far-right marches from previous eras and concerned 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 Britons from the former empire residing in the UK lawfully were mistakenly categorized as illegal migrants.
The lawyer said her parent, who emigrated to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the present debate. Lately, her daughter has asked whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Currently we see young people in their twenties and thirties who have got multiple generations ahead of them, born in Britain, experiencing insecurity,” said the attorney.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for most political parties,” she continued. “The tenets of this, the reach of it spread so far when you start talking about deporting and removing people who are lawfully resident, and millions of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
People with ILR status, or with spouses who hold this status, have expressed that the recent policies suggested 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 unwelcoming.
One individual, a dual British-Jordanian citizen residing in Manchester with his wife and children, said the growing support of the party in the polls had pushed him to get his UK passport. For the last several years he has gone through the procedure of securing ILR – at a significant expense – after relocating to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the proposed policies be implemented, he fears his family would be split up.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said the man, in his thirties. “Who knows how this plays out in the coming years.”
While in daily life, he has “no problems”, Darwazeh has been concerned by the proliferation of national symbols in his neighbourhood, a trend that has been widely co-opted 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 persists.
“I find it really odd that in a nation where immigrants are needed, no one’s actually selling a positive story about immigration at all,” he remarked. “I just find the vilification very odd and frightening, for the future.”
