Leading UK legal professionals have issued warnings about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Conservative MP considered a future party leader suggested that large numbers of legally settled families must be deported.
Controversial Statement on Residency Rights
The MP, a shadow Home Office minister and a party enforcer, stated that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their permission to remain cancelled, to ensure the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, later retreated from Lam’s statement recently.
While the leader initially said the remarks were “generally consistent” with official stance, she later reverted to current rules that only withdraw indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has broken the law. Nevertheless, the statement has sparked concern for many as a signal of “perilous periods” and part of a larger political discourse.
Escalating Pattern of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, leaders across various groups have adopted anti-immigration language and repeated proposals that were once seen as extreme. Most recently, a political party leader expressed dissatisfaction about “every advert” seemingly featuring “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to eliminate the main route for migrants to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “nation of foreigners” 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 a leading barrister, who has examined claims of racism within the opposition party.
The barrister, whose family emigrated from the West Indies, said Lam’s comments 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 served the country, should still feel insecure.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” added the lawyer. “It’s desperate to see Labour feeling the only answer to Reform is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually discuss the benefits of immigration.
“The language has to evolve and has to be truthful.”
Public Sentiment and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has surged in the polls, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to the capital, leaving many British people of colour feeling the situation are reminiscent of far-right marches from previous eras and concerned the UK is “regressing” as elected officials focus on migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has acted for hundreds of affected individuals at the heart of the Windrush scandal, in which Britons from the Commonwealth living in the UK legally were mistakenly categorized as unauthorized immigrants.
The lawyer said her parent, who moved to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the present debate. Recently, her daughter has asked whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Now we’re getting kids in their twenties and thirties who have got multiple generations ahead of them, UK-born, feeling less than,” said the attorney.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a acceptable political direction for many groups,” she added. “The principles here, the reach of it extend widely when you start talking about removing and expelling people who are lawfully resident, and millions of them as well. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
Individuals 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 uncertain in the UK, and described the wider political debate as discriminatory, alarming and hostile.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a person with dual nationality living in the city with his wife and children, said the recent surge of the party 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 simple for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said Darwazeh, 37. “It’s uncertain how this plays out in two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no issues”, he has been concerned by the proliferation of St George’s flags in his area, a practice that has been widely adopted by the far-right and immigration opponents. In the future, though the household has no wish to leave, they may consider it if the unfriendliness continues.
“I find it really odd that in a country where migrants are required, no one’s actually selling a positive story about migration at all,” he added. “I consider the demonisation very odd and frightening, for the future.”
