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 lawfully resident households must be deported.
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 right to stay revoked, to guarantee the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Conservative leader, the party head, later retreated from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While Badenoch initially said the remarks were “broadly in line” with party policy, she later returned to existing policy that only revoke indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has broken the law. However, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and part of a broader political conversation.
Escalating Pattern of Immigration Criticism
In the past few months, politicians across political parties have absorbed anti-immigration language and echoed policies that were once considered fringe. Lately, a Reform UK leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly including “ethnic minorities”, and in September, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the main route for migrants 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 ramifications of that statement were not fully understood, and it was targeting a specific group,” said a leading barrister, who has examined claims of racism within Labour.
The barrister, whose parents migrated from the Caribbean, said the remarks were a “thinly disguised racial purity 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 Forde. “It’s alarming to see Labour 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 truthful.”
National Mood and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has increased 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 previous eras 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 acted for hundreds of affected individuals at the heart of the residency controversy, in which Britons from the Commonwealth living in the UK lawfully were mistakenly categorized as illegal migrants.
The lawyer said her parent, who moved to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the current discourse. Recently, her daughter has asked whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Currently we see kids in their 20s and 30s who have got two 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 legitimate policy orientation for many groups,” she continued. “The tenets of this, the reach of it extend widely when you start talking about deporting and expelling people who are lawfully resident, and millions of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
People with permanent residency, or with spouses who hold this status, have expressed that the recent policies floated by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as discriminatory, alarming and hostile.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a dual British-Jordanian citizen living in Manchester with his wife and children, said the recent surge of Reform in the polls had motivated him to get his British citizenship. For the past six years he has gone through the procedure of securing permanent residency – at a significant expense – after relocating to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the suggested changes be enacted, 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. “It’s uncertain how this plays out in the coming years.”
While day to day, he has “no problems”, he has been concerned by the proliferation of national symbols in his area, a trend that has been widely co-opted by the extremist groups and anti-immigration protesters. In the future, though the family has no wish to leave, they may consider it if the unfriendliness continues.
“It’s strange that in a nation where migrants are required, nobody is promoting a beneficial narrative about immigration at all,” he added. “I just find the vilification very peculiar and frightening, for the future.”
