Leading UK legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “downward spiral”, after a Conservative MP considered a future party leader proposed that large numbers of lawfully resident households must be removed from the country.
Divisive Remarks on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister and a party enforcer, remarked that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their right to stay cancelled, to guarantee the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Tory leader, the party head, later retreated from these comments last Thursday.
While the leader initially said the remarks were “broadly in line” with official stance, she later reverted to current rules that only withdraw permanent residency status if someone has committed a crime. However, the statement has sparked concern for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and belonging to a broader political conversation.
Escalating Pattern of Immigration Criticism
In recent months, leaders across various groups have adopted anti-immigration language and echoed proposals that were once seen as extreme. Lately, a Reform UK leader expressed dissatisfaction about “every advert” seemingly featuring “black and Asian people”, and in last autumn, the party’s leader, Nigel Farage, pledged to eliminate the main route for immigration to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “nation of foreigners” without stricter border controls.
“I don’t accept that the implications of that statement were not fully understood, and it was appealing to a particular audience,” said a leading barrister, who has investigated claims of racism within Labour.
Forde, whose family migrated from the Caribbean, said the remarks were a “thinly disguised keep Britain white campaign”. The leading barrister said the current political discourse was an “utter condemnation” 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 Forde. “It’s alarming to see Labour feeling the only answer to the rival party is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually talk about the benefits of migration.
“The rhetoric has to change and has to be truthful.”
Public Sentiment and Extremist Movements
Support for Reform has surged in the polls, and far-right marches have drawn thousands to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances are similar to extremist rallies from previous eras and fearful the UK is “regressing” as politicians target migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has represented hundreds of victims at the centre of the Windrush scandal, in which UK citizens from the former empire residing in the UK legally were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
The lawyer 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 20s and 30s who have got multiple 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 acceptable political direction for most political parties,” she added. “The principles here, the tentacles of it spread so far when you start talking about removing and expelling people who are lawfully resident, and millions of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
People with ILR status, or with partners who hold this status, have shared that the new proposals suggested by political figures have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and characterized the broader political anti-migrant discourse as racist, alarming and hostile.
One individual, a dual British-Jordanian citizen living in the city with his family, 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 procedure of securing ILR – at a significant expense – after relocating to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the suggested changes be enacted, he worries his family would be split up.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said Darwazeh, in his thirties. “It’s uncertain how this unfolds in two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no problems”, he has been alarmed by the proliferation of national symbols in his neighbourhood, a practice that has been widely adopted by the extremist groups and anti-immigration protesters. In the future, though the household has no wish to leave, they may consider it if the hostility persists.
“I find it really odd that in a country where immigrants are needed, nobody is promoting a positive story about immigration at all,” he remarked. “I consider the vilification very odd and terrifying, for the future.”
