Prominent British legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “downward spiral”, after a Tory lawmaker seen as a future party leader proposed that significant quantities of legally settled families must be removed from the country.
Controversial Statement on Residency Rights
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister and a Tory whip, remarked that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their permission to remain revoked, to guarantee the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, later retreated from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While Badenoch initially said the remarks were “generally consistent” with party policy, she later returned to existing policy that only revoke permanent residency status if someone has committed a crime. Nevertheless, the statement has raised alarms for many as a indication of “perilous periods” and belonging to a larger political discourse.
Escalating Pattern of Immigration Criticism
In recent months, politicians across various groups have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed proposals that were once considered fringe. Most recently, a political party leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly featuring “black and Asian people”, and in last autumn, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to eliminate the primary pathway for migrants to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “island of strangers” without stricter border controls.
“I don’t accept that the ramifications of that phrase were not fully understood, and it was appealing to a particular audience,” said a leading barrister, who has examined claims of discrimination within Labour.
The barrister, whose family migrated from the West Indies, said Lam’s comments were a “thinly disguised keep Britain white campaign”. The legal expert said the present political debate was an “utter condemnation” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still experience anxiety.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” added the lawyer. “It’s desperate to see the opposition feeling the only answer to the rival party is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually discuss the benefits of migration.
“The rhetoric has to change and has to be truthful.”
Public Sentiment and Extremist Movements
Support for Reform has increased in the polls, and extremist demonstrations have drawn thousands to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances are similar to far-right marches from decades past and fearful the UK is “regressing” as elected officials target migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of victims at the centre of the Windrush scandal, in which Britons from the Commonwealth living in the UK legally were mistakenly categorized as illegal migrants.
The lawyer said her father, who moved to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the present debate. Lately, her child has asked whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Currently we see kids in their 20s and 30s who have got two generations ahead of them, UK-born, feeling less than,” said McKenzie.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for most political parties,” she added. “The principles here, the tentacles of it extend widely when you start talking about removing and expelling people who are legally in the country, and vast numbers of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
Individuals with ILR status, or with spouses who hold this status, have expressed that the new proposals suggested by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as racist, frightening and hostile.
One individual, a dual British-Jordanian citizen residing in Manchester with his wife and children, said the growing support of Reform in the polls had pushed him to get his UK passport. For the past six years he has gone through the process of obtaining ILR – at a significant expense – after relocating to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the proposed policies 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, 37. “Who knows how this plays out in two, three years.”
While in daily life, he has “no problems”, he has been concerned by the increase of St George’s flags in his neighbourhood, a practice that has been widely co-opted by the far-right and immigration opponents. Long-term, though the household has no desire to leave, they may consider it if the hostility continues.
“It’s strange that in a country where immigrants are required, no one’s actually selling a positive story about migration at all,” he added. “I just find the demonisation very odd and frightening, long-term.”
