Leading UK attorneys have issued warnings about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Conservative MP considered a potential leadership candidate suggested that significant quantities of lawfully resident households must be deported.
Divisive Remarks on Residency Rights
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 revoked, to ensure the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Tory leader, the party head, later distanced herself from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While Badenoch initially said the statement were “broadly in line” with official stance, she later reverted to existing policy that only withdraw indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has committed a crime. However, the statement has raised alarms for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and belonging to a broader political conversation.
Escalating Pattern of Immigration Criticism
In recent months, politicians across various groups have adopted anti-immigration language and repeated 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 September, the group’s head, the figurehead, pledged to abolish 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 phrase were not comprehended, and it was targeting a specific group,” said Martin Forde KC, who has investigated claims of racism within the opposition party.
Forde, whose family emigrated from the Caribbean, said Lam’s comments were a “thinly disguised keep Britain white campaign”. The legal expert 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 experience anxiety.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” continued the lawyer. “It’s alarming to see Labour feeling the sole solution to the rival party is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually discuss the positives of migration.
“The rhetoric has to evolve and has to be accurate.”
Public Sentiment and Extremist Movements
Support for Reform has surged in the surveys, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to the capital, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances are reminiscent of far-right marches from previous eras and concerned the UK is “going backwards” as elected officials target migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has represented 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 emigrated to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the present debate. Recently, her child has questioned whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Currently we see kids in their 20s and 30s who have got two generations ahead of them, UK-born, experiencing insecurity,” said the attorney.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a acceptable political direction for many groups,” she continued. “The tenets of this, the tentacles of it spread so far when you start talking about removing and expelling people who are legally in the country, and vast numbers of them as well. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
Individuals with permanent residency, or with partners who hold this status, have shared 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 racist, alarming and hostile.
Ramzi Darwazeh, 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 UK passport. For the past six years he has gone through the procedure of securing ILR – at a huge financial cost – after relocating to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the proposed policies be enacted, he worries his family would be separated.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said the man, in his thirties. “Who knows how this plays out in the coming years.”
While day to day, he has “no issues”, he has been alarmed by the increase of St George’s flags in his neighbourhood, a trend that has been widely co-opted by the far-right and anti-immigration protesters. Long-term, 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 migrants are needed, nobody is promoting a positive story about immigration at all,” he added. “I just find the demonisation very peculiar and terrifying, long-term.”
