Leading British legal professionals have issued warnings about a political “downward spiral”, after a Conservative MP seen as a future party leader suggested that significant quantities of legally settled families must be deported.
Divisive Remarks on Residency Rights
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 cancelled, to ensure the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, later retreated from these comments recently.
While Badenoch initially said the statement were “generally consistent” with party policy, she later reverted to current rules that only revoke indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has broken the law. However, the statement has sparked concern for many as a indication of “dangerous times” and part of a broader political conversation.
Escalating Pattern of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, leaders across political parties have absorbed anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed policies that were once seen as extreme. Most recently, a political party leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly featuring “black and Asian people”, and in September, the group’s head, 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 tougher immigration policies.
“It’s hard to believe that the implications of that statement were not fully understood, and it was targeting a particular audience,” said Martin Forde KC, who has investigated claims of racism within the opposition party.
Forde, whose family emigrated from the Caribbean, said the remarks were a “thinly disguised racial purity campaign”. The legal expert said the current political discourse was an “utter condemnation” that someone like himself, from generations of people who had served the country, should still feel insecure.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” added the lawyer. “It’s alarming to see Labour feeling the sole solution to the rival party is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually talk about the benefits of immigration.
“The rhetoric has to evolve and has to be truthful.”
Public Sentiment and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has increased in the polls, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to the capital, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances are reminiscent of extremist rallies from decades past and concerned the UK is “going backwards” as elected officials focus on 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 former empire residing in the UK lawfully were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
The lawyer said her father, who emigrated to the UK from the Caribbean 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 20s and 30s who have got two generations ahead of them, UK-born, feeling less than,” said the attorney.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for most political parties,” she continued. “The principles here, the tentacles of it spread so far when you start talking about deporting and expelling people who are lawfully resident, and millions of them as well. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
Individuals with permanent residency, or with partners who hold this status, have expressed that the recent policies floated by political figures have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as racist, alarming and unwelcoming.
One individual, a dual British-Jordanian citizen living in Manchester with his wife and children, said the recent surge of Reform in the surveys had pushed him to get his UK passport. For the last several years he has gone through the procedure of obtaining ILR – at a significant expense – after moving 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 never happen,” said Darwazeh, in his thirties. “Who knows how this plays out in two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no issues”, he has been alarmed by the increase of St George’s flags in his area, a trend that has been widely co-opted by the extremist groups and immigration opponents. Long-term, though the household has no desire to leave, they may think about it if the hostility persists.
“It’s strange that in a country where migrants are needed, nobody is promoting a beneficial narrative about migration at all,” he remarked. “I just find the demonisation very peculiar and terrifying, long-term.”
