Leading UK legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a future party leader suggested that significant quantities of lawfully resident households must be removed from the country.
Controversial Statement on Residency Rights
Katie Lam, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a party enforcer, remarked that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their right to stay revoked, to ensure the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, later retreated from these comments last Thursday.
While the leader initially said the statement were “generally consistent” with party policy, she later returned to current rules that only withdraw indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has committed a crime. Nevertheless, the proposal has sparked concern for many as a indication of “perilous periods” and part of a broader political conversation.
Escalating Pattern of Immigration Criticism
In the past few months, politicians across political parties have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed policies that were once considered fringe. Lately, a political party leader expressed dissatisfaction about “every advert” seemingly featuring “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the party’s leader, Nigel Farage, pledged to eliminate the primary pathway for immigration to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK risked becoming an “nation of foreigners” without stricter border controls.
“It’s hard to believe that the ramifications of that phrase were not comprehended, and it was appealing to a particular audience,” said Martin Forde KC, who has examined claims of discrimination within Labour.
The barrister, whose parents emigrated from the Caribbean, said the remarks were a “thinly disguised racial purity campaign”. The legal expert said the current political discourse 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 Forde. “It’s alarming to see the opposition feeling the sole solution to Reform is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually discuss the positives of immigration.
“The language has to change and has to be truthful.”
National Mood and Far-Right Activity
Backing for the party has surged in the polls, and far-right marches have drawn thousands to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances are reminiscent of far-right marches from previous eras and fearful the UK is “regressing” as politicians target migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has acted for hundreds of victims at the centre of the Windrush scandal, in which Britons from the former empire living in the UK legally were classed wrongly as unauthorized immigrants.
McKenzie said her father, who emigrated to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the current discourse. Recently, her daughter has asked whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Currently we see kids in their 20s and 30s who have got multiple generations ahead of them, UK-born, experiencing insecurity,” said McKenzie.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for many groups,” she continued. “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 vast numbers of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
People with ILR status, or with partners who hold this status, have shared that the recent policies floated by political figures have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as racist, frightening and unwelcoming.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a dual British-Jordanian citizen residing in Manchester with his family, said the recent surge of Reform in the polls had motivated him to get his British citizenship. For the last several years he has gone through the procedure of obtaining ILR – at a significant expense – after moving to the UK on a marriage permit. 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 Darwazeh, in his thirties. “It’s uncertain how this plays out in two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no problems”, Darwazeh has been concerned by the increase of St George’s flags in his area, a practice that has been widely co-opted by the far-right and anti-immigration protesters. Long-term, though the family has no desire to leave, they may consider it if the unfriendliness persists.
“It’s strange that in a country where migrants are needed, no one’s actually selling a beneficial narrative about migration at all,” he added. “I consider the vilification very odd and terrifying, for the future.”
