Leading UK legal professionals have issued warnings about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a potential leadership candidate proposed that large numbers of lawfully resident households must be deported.
Divisive Remarks on Legal Status
The MP, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a party enforcer, stated that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their permission to remain cancelled, to ensure the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, later retreated from Lam’s statement recently.
While Badenoch initially said the statement were “generally consistent” with official stance, she later reverted to current rules that only revoke permanent residency status if someone has broken the law. However, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a indication of “perilous periods” and belonging to a broader political conversation.
Escalating Pattern of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, politicians across various groups have adopted anti-immigration language and echoed policies that were once considered fringe. Lately, a Reform UK leader complained about “every advert” seemingly featuring “ethnic minorities”, and in September, the party’s leader, Nigel Farage, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for immigration to gain 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 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.
Forde, whose parents emigrated from the West Indies, said Lam’s comments were a “thinly disguised keep Britain white campaign”. The legal expert said the current political discourse was an “absolute indictment” 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,” 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 talk about the benefits of immigration.
“The language has to change and has to be accurate.”
Public Sentiment and Extremist Movements
Support for Reform has surged in the surveys, and extremist demonstrations have drawn thousands to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the situation are reminiscent of far-right marches from decades past and fearful the UK is “going backwards” as elected officials focus on migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has acted for hundreds of affected individuals at the centre of the Windrush scandal, in which Britons from the Commonwealth residing in the UK legally were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
McKenzie said her parent, who emigrated to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the current discourse. 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 two generations ahead of them, born in Britain, experiencing insecurity,” said McKenzie.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for most political parties,” she added. “The tenets of this, the reach of it extend widely when you start talking about removing and removing people who are legally in the country, and millions of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
Individuals with permanent residency, or with spouses who hold this status, have shared that the recent policies floated by political figures have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and described the wider political debate as discriminatory, frightening and unwelcoming.
One individual, a dual British-Jordanian citizen residing in the city with his wife and children, said the recent surge of Reform in the polls had motivated him to get his British citizenship. 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 marriage permit. Should the proposed policies be implemented, he worries 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 issues”, Darwazeh has been alarmed by the increase of national symbols in his area, a trend that has been widely co-opted by the extremist groups and immigration opponents. In the future, though the household has no wish 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 beneficial narrative about migration at all,” he remarked. “I consider the demonisation very peculiar and terrifying, for the future.”
