Prominent British legal professionals 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 removed from the country.
Controversial Statement on Legal Status
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 ensure the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, later retreated from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While Badenoch initially said the remarks were “generally consistent” with official stance, she later returned to existing policy that only withdraw permanent residency status if someone has committed a crime. However, the statement has sparked concern for many as a indication of “perilous periods” and part of a larger political discourse.
Growing Trend of Immigration Criticism
In recent months, leaders across political parties have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed proposals that were once seen as extreme. Lately, a political party leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly including “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the group’s head, Nigel Farage, pledged to eliminate the primary pathway for migrants to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK risked becoming an “island of strangers” without stricter border controls.
“It’s hard to believe that the ramifications of that phrase were not fully understood, and it was appealing to a specific group,” said Martin Forde KC, who has examined claims of racism within the opposition party.
The barrister, whose parents emigrated from the West Indies, said Lam’s comments were a “thinly disguised racial purity campaign”. The leading barrister 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 feel insecure.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” added the lawyer. “It’s alarming to see the opposition feeling the sole solution to Reform is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually discuss the positives of migration.
“The language has to change and has to be accurate.”
Public Sentiment and Far-Right Activity
Backing for the party has surged in the surveys, and far-right marches have drawn thousands to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances are similar to far-right marches from decades past and concerned the UK is “regressing” as politicians focus on migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has represented hundreds of affected individuals at the heart of the Windrush scandal, in which UK citizens from the Commonwealth residing in the UK lawfully were mistakenly categorized as unauthorized immigrants.
McKenzie said her parent, who emigrated to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the current discourse. Lately, her child has asked whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Currently we see young people in their 20s and 30s who have got multiple 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 many groups,” she continued. “The principles here, the reach of it extend widely when you start talking about deporting and removing people who are legally in the country, and vast numbers 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 new proposals floated by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and characterized the wider political debate as discriminatory, alarming and unwelcoming.
One individual, a person with dual nationality living in the city with his wife and children, said the recent surge of the party in the surveys had motivated him to get his UK passport. For the past six 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 proposed policies be implemented, he worries his family would be split up.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said Darwazeh, 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 increase of St George’s flags in his area, a trend that has been widely adopted by the extremist groups and anti-immigration protesters. Long-term, though the family has no wish to leave, they may consider it if the unfriendliness continues.
“I find it really odd that in a country where migrants are needed, no one’s actually selling a positive story about migration at all,” he added. “I just find the vilification very odd and frightening, for the future.”
