Leading British legal professionals have issued warnings about a political “downward spiral”, after a Conservative MP seen as a potential leadership candidate suggested that significant quantities of legally settled families must be removed from the country.
Divisive Remarks on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a Tory whip, remarked that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their permission to remain revoked, to guarantee the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, later distanced herself from these comments last Thursday.
While Badenoch initially said the remarks were “broadly in line” with party policy, she later returned to existing policy that only revoke permanent residency status if someone has broken the law. However, the statement has raised alarms for many as a indication of “dangerous times” and belonging to a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In the past few months, leaders across various groups have absorbed anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed policies that were once seen as extreme. Most recently, a Reform UK leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly including “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the party’s leader, Nigel Farage, pledged to abolish the main route for immigration to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK risked becoming an “island of strangers” without tougher immigration policies.
“It’s hard to believe that the implications of that phrase were not comprehended, and it was targeting a particular audience,” said a leading barrister, who has examined claims of discrimination within the opposition party.
Forde, whose family emigrated from the West Indies, said Lam’s comments were a barely concealed racial purity campaign”. The legal expert said the current political discourse was an “utter condemnation” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had served the country, should still experience anxiety.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” added Forde. “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.”
National Mood and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has increased in the polls, and extremist demonstrations have attracted large crowds to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances are reminiscent of far-right marches from previous eras and fearful the UK is “going backwards” as politicians focus on migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has acted for hundreds of affected individuals at the heart of the residency controversy, in which UK citizens from the former empire 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 child has asked whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Currently we see kids in their twenties and thirties who have got two generations ahead of them, UK-born, feeling less than,” said McKenzie.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a acceptable political direction for many groups,” she added. “The tenets of this, the tentacles of it extend widely when you start talking about removing and removing 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 shared that the new proposals floated by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and characterized the wider political debate as racist, alarming and hostile.
One individual, a person with dual nationality residing in Manchester with his wife and children, 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 process of securing permanent residency – at a huge financial cost – after moving to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the suggested changes be enacted, he worries his family would be split up.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said the man, 37. “Who knows how this plays out in two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no problems”, he has been concerned by the increase of St George’s flags in his neighbourhood, a practice that has been widely co-opted by the far-right and anti-immigration protesters. In the future, though the family has no wish to leave, they may think about it if the hostility continues.
“It’s strange that in a nation where migrants are needed, no one’s actually selling a positive story about immigration at all,” he added. “I consider the demonisation very odd and terrifying, long-term.”
