Prominent UK attorneys have issued warnings about a political “downward spiral”, after a Conservative MP seen as a future party leader proposed that large numbers of legally settled families must be deported.
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 revoked, to ensure the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, later retreated from Lam’s statement recently.
While Badenoch initially said the statement were “broadly in line” with official stance, she later returned to existing policy that only withdraw indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has committed a crime. However, the statement has sparked concern for many as a indication of “dangerous times” and belonging to a broader political conversation.
Escalating Pattern of Immigration Criticism
In the past few months, politicians across political parties have absorbed anti-immigration language and repeated policies that were once considered fringe. Lately, a Reform UK leader expressed dissatisfaction about “numerous advertisements” seemingly including “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to eliminate the primary pathway for immigration to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “nation of foreigners” without stricter border controls.
“It’s hard to believe that the ramifications of that statement were not fully understood, and it was targeting a specific group,” said Martin Forde KC, who has examined claims of discrimination within the opposition party.
Forde, whose family migrated from the Caribbean, said the remarks were a “thinly disguised keep Britain white campaign”. The leading barrister 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 feel insecure.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” continued Forde. “It’s desperate to see Labour feeling the only answer to Reform is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually discuss the positives of migration.
“The rhetoric has to change and has to be accurate.”
National Mood and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has increased in the surveys, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to London, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the circumstances are reminiscent of extremist rallies from previous eras and fearful the UK is “regressing” as politicians focus on migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of victims at the heart of the Windrush scandal, in which UK citizens from the Commonwealth living in the UK legally were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
The lawyer said her father, who emigrated to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the present debate. Recently, her child has asked whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Now we’re getting young people in their twenties and thirties who have got multiple generations ahead of them, UK-born, feeling less than,” said McKenzie.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for many groups,” she continued. “The principles here, the reach of it spread so far 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?”
Personal Impact
People with permanent residency, or with partners who hold this status, have shared that the recent policies suggested by political figures have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and characterized the wider political debate as discriminatory, alarming and unwelcoming.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a person with dual nationality residing in the city with his family, said the growing support of the party in the polls had motivated him to get his UK passport. For the past six years he has gone through the procedure of securing ILR – at a huge financial cost – after relocating to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the proposed policies be implemented, he worries his family would be separated.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said the man, in his thirties. “Who knows how this unfolds 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 neighbourhood, a practice that has been widely adopted by the far-right and immigration opponents. Long-term, though the household has no desire to leave, they may consider it if the unfriendliness continues.
“I find it really odd that in a country where immigrants are needed, nobody is promoting a beneficial narrative about immigration at all,” he added. “I consider the vilification very odd and frightening, for the future.”
