Leading UK legal professionals have issued warnings about a political “downward spiral”, after a Conservative MP considered a potential leadership candidate suggested that significant quantities of legally settled families must be removed from the country.
Controversial Statement on Residency Rights
Katie Lam, a opposition home affairs spokesperson 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 Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, later distanced herself from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While Badenoch initially said the statement were “broadly in line” with official stance, she later returned to existing policy that only withdraw indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has committed a crime. Nevertheless, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a indication of “perilous periods” and part of a larger political discourse.
Growing Trend of Immigration Criticism
In the past few months, leaders across political parties have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and repeated proposals that were once considered fringe. Most recently, a Reform UK leader complained about “every advert” seemingly including “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to eliminate the main route for immigration to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer 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 comprehended, and it was appealing to a particular audience,” said Martin Forde KC, who has examined claims of racism within Labour.
Forde, whose parents emigrated from the West Indies, said Lam’s comments were a barely concealed keep Britain white campaign”. The leading barrister said the current political discourse was an “absolute indictment” 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 desperate to see the opposition feeling the sole solution to the rival party is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually discuss the benefits of migration.
“The rhetoric has to change and has to be truthful.”
Public Sentiment and Extremist Movements
Backing for the party has surged in the surveys, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to the capital, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the circumstances are similar to far-right marches from previous eras and concerned the UK is “regressing” as elected officials focus on migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of affected individuals at the centre of the Windrush scandal, in which Britons from the former empire living in the UK legally were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
The lawyer said her parent, who emigrated to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the present debate. Lately, her child has asked whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Currently we see young people in their twenties and thirties 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 legitimate policy orientation for many groups,” she continued. “The tenets of this, the tentacles of it extend widely when you start talking about removing and expelling people who are lawfully resident, and vast numbers 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 new proposals suggested by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and characterized the wider political debate as racist, frightening and unwelcoming.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a person with dual nationality residing in the city with his family, said the recent surge of Reform in the surveys 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 moving to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the suggested changes be implemented, he fears his family would be split up.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said Darwazeh, 37. “Who knows how this plays out in two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no problems”, Darwazeh has been alarmed by the increase of St George’s flags in his area, a practice that has been widely co-opted by the far-right and immigration opponents. 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 nation where immigrants are required, no one’s actually selling a positive story about migration at all,” he added. “I consider the vilification very odd and terrifying, long-term.”
