Prominent UK legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a future party leader suggested that large numbers of lawfully resident households must be removed from the country.
Controversial Statement on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister and a Tory whip, stated that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their right to stay revoked, to ensure the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Conservative leader, the party head, later retreated from Lam’s statement recently.
While the leader initially said the statement were “broadly in line” with party policy, she later reverted to current rules that only revoke permanent residency status if someone has broken the law. Nevertheless, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a signal of “perilous periods” and belonging to a broader political conversation.
Escalating Pattern of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, leaders across political parties have absorbed anti-immigration language and repeated policies that were once considered fringe. Lately, a political party leader complained about “every advert” seemingly featuring “ethnic minorities”, and in September, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the main route for immigration to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “island of strangers” without stricter border controls.
“I don’t accept that the implications of that phrase were not fully understood, and it was appealing to a specific group,” said Martin Forde KC, who has investigated claims of racism within Labour.
The barrister, whose family migrated from the West Indies, said Lam’s comments were a “thinly disguised racial purity campaign”. The leading barrister 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 feel insecure.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” continued the lawyer. “It’s desperate to see the opposition feeling the only answer to Reform is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually discuss the positives of migration.
“The language has to change and has to be accurate.”
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 minority ethnic Britons feeling the situation are reminiscent of extremist rallies from decades past and fearful the UK is “regressing” as elected officials focus on migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has represented hundreds of affected individuals at the centre of the Windrush scandal, in which UK citizens from the former empire living in the UK legally were mistakenly categorized as unauthorized immigrants.
McKenzie said her father, who moved to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the current discourse. Lately, her daughter has asked whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Now we’re getting kids in their 20s and 30s who have got two generations ahead of them, UK-born, experiencing insecurity,” said the attorney.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a acceptable political direction for most political parties,” she continued. “The tenets of this, the reach 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 recent policies floated by political figures have left them feeling insecure 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 family, said the growing support of Reform in the surveys had motivated him to get his British citizenship. For the last several years he has gone through the process of obtaining permanent residency – at a significant expense – after relocating to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the proposed policies be implemented, he worries his family would be separated.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said Darwazeh, 37. “Who knows how this plays out in the coming years.”
While in daily life, he has “no issues”, he has been concerned by the proliferation of national symbols in his neighbourhood, a practice that has been widely adopted by the extremist groups and immigration opponents. Long-term, though the household has no wish to leave, they may think about it if the unfriendliness continues.
“It’s strange that in a country where immigrants are needed, no one’s actually selling a positive story about migration at all,” he remarked. “I consider the vilification very odd and terrifying, for the future.”
