Leading UK legal professionals have issued warnings about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Conservative MP considered a future party leader suggested that significant quantities of legally settled families must be deported.
Controversial Statement on Residency Rights
The MP, a shadow Home Office minister and a Tory whip, remarked that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their permission to remain revoked, to guarantee the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Conservative leader, the party head, later retreated from Lam’s statement recently.
While Badenoch initially said the remarks were “generally consistent” with party policy, she later returned to existing policy that only withdraw indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has broken the law. However, the statement has raised alarms for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and part of a larger political discourse.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In the past few months, leaders across political parties have absorbed anti-migrant rhetoric and repeated policies that were once seen as extreme. Lately, a political party leader expressed dissatisfaction about “numerous advertisements” seemingly featuring “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the party’s leader, Nigel Farage, pledged to eliminate the primary pathway for migrants to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK risked becoming an “nation of foreigners” without tougher immigration policies.
“I don’t accept that the ramifications of that statement were not comprehended, and it was appealing to a particular audience,” said Martin Forde KC, who has investigated claims of discrimination within Labour.
The barrister, whose family emigrated from the Caribbean, said the remarks were a barely concealed keep Britain white campaign”. The leading barrister said the current political discourse was an “utter condemnation” that someone like himself, from generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still feel insecure.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” continued Forde. “It’s desperate to see the opposition feeling the sole solution to Reform is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually discuss the positives of immigration.
“The language has to change and has to be truthful.”
National Mood and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has increased in the polls, and extremist demonstrations have drawn thousands to the capital, leaving many British people of colour feeling the situation are similar to far-right marches from previous eras and fearful the UK is “regressing” as politicians focus on migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has acted for hundreds of affected individuals at the centre of the Windrush scandal, in which UK citizens from the Commonwealth living in the UK legally were mistakenly categorized as illegal migrants.
McKenzie said her parent, who emigrated to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the current discourse. Lately, her daughter has questioned whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Now we’re getting kids in their 20s and 30s who have got multiple 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 acceptable political direction for most political parties,” she added. “The principles here, the tentacles of it spread so far when you start talking about deporting and removing people who are lawfully resident, and vast numbers of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
People with ILR status, or with partners who hold this status, have shared that the new proposals suggested by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and characterized the wider political debate as racist, frightening and hostile.
One individual, a person with dual nationality residing in the city with his wife and children, said the recent surge of the party in the polls had pushed him to get his British citizenship. For the last several years he has gone through the process of obtaining permanent residency – at a huge financial cost – after moving to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the suggested changes be enacted, he fears 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 problems”, Darwazeh has been alarmed by the proliferation of St George’s flags in his neighbourhood, a trend that has been widely co-opted by the far-right and immigration opponents. In the future, though the household has no desire to leave, they may consider it if the hostility continues.
“I find it really odd that in a nation where migrants are needed, no one’s actually selling a positive story about immigration at all,” he added. “I consider the vilification very peculiar and frightening, long-term.”
