Leading UK legal professionals have issued warnings about a political “downward spiral”, after a Conservative MP considered a future party leader proposed that large numbers of legally settled families must be deported.
Divisive Remarks on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister and a party enforcer, stated that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their right to stay cancelled, to ensure the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Tory leader, the party head, later retreated from these comments recently.
While the leader initially said the statement were “generally consistent” with party policy, she later returned to existing policy that only withdraw indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has committed a crime. However, the statement has sparked concern for many as a indication of “perilous periods” and belonging to a broader political conversation.
Escalating Pattern of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In the past few months, leaders across political parties have absorbed anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed proposals that were once seen as extreme. Lately, a political party leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly featuring “black and Asian people”, and in last autumn, the group’s head, Nigel Farage, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for migrants to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK risked becoming an “nation of foreigners” without tougher immigration policies.
“It’s hard to believe that the ramifications of that phrase were not comprehended, and it was appealing to a particular audience,” said Martin Forde KC, who has examined claims of racism within the opposition party.
The barrister, whose family migrated from the Caribbean, said the remarks were a barely concealed keep Britain white campaign”. The leading barrister 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 sole solution to Reform is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually discuss the benefits of migration.
“The rhetoric has to evolve 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 London, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the circumstances are reminiscent of extremist rallies from decades past and concerned 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 Britons from the Commonwealth living in the UK legally were classed wrongly as unauthorized immigrants.
The lawyer said her father, who emigrated to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the present debate. Lately, her child has questioned whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Now we’re getting kids in their twenties and thirties who have got multiple generations ahead of them, UK-born, experiencing insecurity,” said the attorney.
“We are in really, really dangerous 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 removing and expelling people who are lawfully resident, and vast numbers of them as well. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
People with ILR status, or with spouses who hold this status, have shared that the new proposals suggested by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and characterized the broader political anti-migrant discourse as discriminatory, alarming and unwelcoming.
One individual, a person with dual nationality living in Manchester with his family, said the growing support of the party 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 huge financial cost – after moving 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 never happen,” said Darwazeh, 37. “Who knows how this unfolds in two, three years.”
While in daily life, 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 extremist groups and immigration opponents. Long-term, though the household has no wish to leave, they may consider it if the unfriendliness continues.
“It’s strange that in a country where immigrants are required, nobody is promoting a positive story about immigration at all,” he added. “I just find the vilification very peculiar and frightening, long-term.”
