Leading British legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a potential leadership candidate proposed that large numbers of lawfully resident households must be removed from the country.
Divisive Remarks on Residency Rights
The MP, a shadow Home Office minister and a party enforcer, remarked that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their permission to remain revoked, to ensure the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, later distanced herself from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While the leader initially said the statement were “generally consistent” with party policy, she later returned to current rules that only revoke indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has committed a crime. Nevertheless, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a indication of “perilous periods” and part of a larger political discourse.
Escalating Pattern of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, politicians across political parties have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and repeated policies that were once considered fringe. Lately, a political party leader expressed dissatisfaction about “every advert” seemingly featuring “black and Asian people”, and in last autumn, the group’s head, the figurehead, pledged to eliminate the primary pathway for migrants to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “nation of foreigners” without stricter border controls.
“I don’t accept that the implications of that phrase were not fully understood, and it was targeting a specific group,” said Martin Forde KC, who has examined claims of racism within Labour.
The barrister, whose parents emigrated from the Caribbean, said Lam’s comments were a “thinly disguised keep Britain white campaign”. The legal expert said the present political debate was an “utter condemnation” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had served the country, should still experience anxiety.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” continued the lawyer. “It’s desperate to see the opposition feeling the only answer to the rival party is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually talk about the benefits of immigration.
“The language has to evolve and has to be accurate.”
National Mood and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has surged 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 decades past and fearful the UK is “going backwards” as elected officials focus on migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has acted for hundreds of victims at the centre of the residency controversy, in which UK citizens from the Commonwealth residing in the UK lawfully were mistakenly categorized as unauthorized immigrants.
McKenzie said her father, who emigrated to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the current discourse. Lately, her child 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-immigrant fervour is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for many groups,” she continued. “The tenets of this, the tentacles of it extend widely when you start talking about deporting and expelling people who are legally in the country, and millions of them as well. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
Individuals with permanent residency, or with spouses who hold this status, have shared that the new proposals suggested by political figures have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and characterized the wider political debate as discriminatory, frightening and hostile.
One individual, a person with dual nationality living in Manchester with his family, said the growing support of the party in the surveys had motivated him to get his British citizenship. For the last several years he has gone through the procedure of securing ILR – at a huge financial cost – after relocating to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the suggested changes be implemented, he fears his family would be separated.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said the man, in his thirties. “It’s uncertain how this plays out in two, three years.”
While in daily life, he has “no issues”, Darwazeh has been concerned by the proliferation of St George’s flags in his area, a trend that has been widely co-opted by the extremist groups and immigration opponents. In the future, though the family has no desire to leave, they may think about it if the unfriendliness persists.
“It’s strange that in a nation where immigrants are required, nobody is promoting a beneficial narrative about migration at all,” he remarked. “I just find the demonisation very odd and terrifying, long-term.”
