Prominent UK legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Conservative MP considered a potential leadership candidate proposed that significant quantities of legally settled families must be removed from the country.
Controversial Statement on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a party enforcer, remarked that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their right to stay revoked, to ensure the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, later distanced herself from these comments last Thursday.
While the leader initially said the remarks were “broadly in line” with party policy, she later returned to existing policy that only withdraw indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has broken the law. Nevertheless, the proposal has sparked concern for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and part of a larger political discourse.
Escalating Pattern of Immigration Criticism
In the past few months, politicians across political parties have adopted anti-immigration language and repeated proposals that were once seen as extreme. Most recently, a political party leader expressed dissatisfaction about “numerous advertisements” seemingly featuring “black and Asian people”, and in September, the group’s head, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the main route for immigration to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK risked becoming an “island of strangers” without tougher immigration policies.
“I don’t accept that the ramifications of that statement were not fully understood, and it was appealing to a specific group,” said Martin Forde KC, who has investigated claims of discrimination within the opposition party.
Forde, whose family migrated from the West Indies, said the remarks were a barely concealed racial purity campaign”. The leading barrister said the current political discourse was an “utter condemnation” that someone like himself, from generations of people who had served the country, should still experience anxiety.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” added the lawyer. “It’s desperate to see the opposition feeling the only answer to Reform is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually talk about the positives of migration.
“The rhetoric has to change and has to be truthful.”
Public Sentiment and Extremist Movements
Backing for the party has increased in the surveys, and extremist demonstrations have drawn thousands to the capital, leaving many British people of colour feeling the situation are reminiscent of extremist rallies from previous eras and fearful the UK is “regressing” as politicians focus on migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has represented hundreds of victims at the heart of the Windrush scandal, in which UK citizens from the Commonwealth living in the UK legally were mistakenly categorized as unauthorized immigrants.
McKenzie said her father, who emigrated to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the current discourse. Lately, her child has questioned whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Currently we see young people in their 20s and 30s who have got multiple generations ahead of them, born in Britain, experiencing insecurity,” said McKenzie.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for many groups,” she added. “The tenets of this, the tentacles of it extend widely when you start talking about deporting and removing people who are lawfully resident, and millions of them as well. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
People with ILR status, or with spouses who hold this status, have expressed that the new proposals suggested by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as racist, alarming and hostile.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a person with dual nationality residing in the city with his family, said the recent surge of Reform in the polls had motivated him to get his UK passport. For the last several years he has gone through the process of securing ILR – at a significant expense – after relocating to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the proposed policies be enacted, he fears his family would be separated.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said Darwazeh, in his thirties. “Who knows how this plays out in the coming years.”
While day to day, he has “no issues”, he has been concerned by the proliferation of national symbols in his neighbourhood, a trend that has been widely adopted by the far-right and anti-immigration protesters. In the future, though the household has no wish to leave, they may think about it if the hostility persists.
“It’s strange that in a nation where immigrants are required, nobody is promoting a positive story about migration at all,” he added. “I just find the vilification very peculiar and terrifying, for the future.”
