Leading UK legal professionals have issued warnings about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Tory lawmaker seen as a potential leadership candidate proposed that large numbers of lawfully resident households must be deported.
Divisive Remarks on Legal Status
The MP, a shadow Home Office minister and a party enforcer, stated that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their permission to remain cancelled, to ensure the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Conservative leader, the party head, later retreated from Lam’s statement recently.
While Badenoch initially said the statement were “generally consistent” with party policy, she later returned to current rules that only revoke permanent residency status if someone has committed a crime. Nevertheless, the statement has sparked concern for many as a indication of “dangerous times” and belonging to a larger political discourse.
Growing Trend of Immigration Criticism
In the past few months, politicians across various groups have absorbed anti-immigration language and repeated proposals that were once considered fringe. Most recently, a political party leader expressed dissatisfaction about “numerous advertisements” seemingly including “black and Asian people”, and in last autumn, the group’s head, Nigel Farage, pledged to abolish the main route for immigration to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK risked becoming an “nation of foreigners” without tougher immigration policies.
“I don’t accept that the ramifications of that phrase were not comprehended, and it was targeting a specific group,” said Martin Forde KC, who has examined claims of discrimination within the opposition party.
Forde, whose family emigrated from the Caribbean, said Lam’s comments were a barely concealed keep Britain white campaign”. The legal expert said the current political discourse was an “absolute indictment” that someone like himself, from generations of people who had served the country, should still feel insecure.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” added the lawyer. “It’s alarming to see the opposition feeling the only answer to the rival party is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually discuss the positives of migration.
“The rhetoric has to evolve and has to be accurate.”
National Mood and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has increased in the polls, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the situation are reminiscent of far-right marches from previous eras and fearful the UK is “going backwards” as elected officials target 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 former empire living in the UK legally were mistakenly categorized as illegal migrants.
The lawyer said her father, who emigrated to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the present debate. Recently, her daughter has asked whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Currently we see young people in their 20s and 30s who have got two generations ahead of them, born in Britain, feeling less than,” said McKenzie.
“These are extremely hazardous 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 extend widely 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 new proposals floated by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as discriminatory, frightening and hostile.
One individual, a dual British-Jordanian citizen living in the city with his family, 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 process of obtaining ILR – at a huge financial cost – after relocating to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the suggested changes be implemented, he fears his family would be split up.
“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 the coming years.”
While day to day, he has “no problems”, he has been concerned by the proliferation 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 wish to leave, they may think about it if the unfriendliness persists.
“It’s strange that in a country where immigrants are needed, no one’s actually selling a beneficial narrative about migration at all,” he added. “I consider the vilification very odd and frightening, for the future.”
