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 significant quantities of lawfully resident households must be removed from the country.
Controversial Statement on Residency Rights
The MP, a shadow Home Office minister and a Tory whip, stated that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their permission to remain cancelled, to guarantee the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Conservative leader, the party head, later distanced herself from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While Badenoch initially said the remarks were “generally consistent” with party policy, she later reverted to current rules that only revoke permanent residency status if someone has broken the law. However, the statement has sparked concern for many as a indication of “perilous periods” and belonging to a larger political discourse.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, leaders across political parties have adopted anti-immigration language and repeated proposals that were once seen as extreme. Lately, a Reform UK leader expressed dissatisfaction about “numerous advertisements” seemingly including “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the group’s head, Nigel Farage, pledged to eliminate the primary pathway for immigration 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 implications of that phrase were not fully understood, and it was appealing to a particular audience,” said Martin Forde KC, who has investigated claims of discrimination within Labour.
The barrister, whose family migrated from the Caribbean, said Lam’s comments were a barely concealed racial purity campaign”. The legal expert said the present political debate was an “utter condemnation” that someone like himself, from generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still feel insecure.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” continued the lawyer. “It’s desperate to see Labour feeling the only answer to the rival party is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually discuss the benefits of immigration.
“The language has to evolve and has to be truthful.”
National Mood and Extremist Movements
Backing for the party has increased in the polls, and far-right marches have drawn thousands to the capital, leaving many British people of colour feeling the situation are similar to extremist rallies from decades past and fearful the UK is “regressing” as elected officials focus on migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has represented hundreds of victims at the centre of the Windrush scandal, in which UK citizens from the Commonwealth residing in the UK lawfully were mistakenly categorized as unauthorized immigrants.
The lawyer said her father, who emigrated to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the present debate. Lately, her child has questioned whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Now we’re getting young people in their twenties and thirties who have got multiple generations ahead of them, born in Britain, feeling less than,” said McKenzie.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a acceptable political direction for many groups,” she added. “The principles here, the tentacles of it spread so far when you start talking about removing and expelling people who are legally in the country, and millions of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
People with ILR status, or with spouses who hold this status, have shared that the recent policies suggested by political figures have left them feeling uncertain 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 the city with his wife and children, said the growing support of the party in the surveys had pushed 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 suggested changes be enacted, he fears his family would be split up.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said Darwazeh, in his thirties. “It’s uncertain how this unfolds in the coming years.”
While day to day, he has “no issues”, he has been alarmed by the proliferation of St George’s flags in his neighbourhood, a trend 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 persists.
“It’s strange that in a country where migrants are required, no one’s actually selling a positive story about migration at all,” he added. “I just find the vilification very odd and frightening, long-term.”
