Leading British attorneys have issued warnings about a political “downward spiral”, after a Tory lawmaker seen as a future party leader suggested that large numbers of lawfully resident households must be removed from the country.
Controversial Statement on Legal Status
The MP, a shadow Home Office minister and a party enforcer, remarked that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their permission to remain revoked, to guarantee the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, later retreated from Lam’s statement recently.
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. Nevertheless, the statement has raised alarms for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and belonging to a larger political discourse.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In the past few months, politicians across political parties have absorbed anti-immigration language and repeated proposals that were once seen as extreme. Lately, a Reform UK leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly including “black and Asian people”, and in September, the group’s head, Nigel Farage, pledged to eliminate the main route for migrants to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “island of strangers” without stricter border controls.
“I don’t accept that the ramifications of that phrase were not comprehended, and it was targeting a particular audience,” said Martin Forde KC, who has examined claims of racism within Labour.
Forde, whose parents emigrated from the West Indies, said the remarks were a “thinly disguised keep Britain white campaign”. The legal expert said the current political discourse was an “absolute indictment” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had served the country, should still experience anxiety.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” continued Forde. “It’s desperate to see Labour feeling the only answer to Reform is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually discuss the positives of migration.
“The rhetoric has to change and has to be accurate.”
Public Sentiment and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has increased in the surveys, and far-right marches have drawn thousands to the capital, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances are reminiscent of extremist rallies from previous eras and fearful the UK is “regressing” as elected officials target 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 Britons from the former empire residing in the UK lawfully were classed wrongly 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. Lately, her daughter has questioned whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Currently we see kids in their twenties and thirties who have got multiple generations ahead of them, born in Britain, experiencing insecurity,” said the attorney.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-immigrant fervour 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 deporting and expelling people who are legally in the country, and millions of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
Individuals with permanent residency, or with partners who hold this status, have expressed that the recent policies suggested by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and characterized the broader political anti-migrant discourse as racist, frightening and unwelcoming.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a person with dual nationality living in Manchester with his wife and children, said the growing support of Reform in the surveys had motivated him to get his UK passport. For the past six years he has gone through the procedure of securing ILR – at a significant expense – after moving to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the suggested changes be implemented, he worries his family would be separated.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said Darwazeh, 37. “It’s uncertain how this unfolds in two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no problems”, Darwazeh has been alarmed by the increase of St George’s flags in his area, a trend that has been widely co-opted by the extremist groups and anti-immigration protesters. In the future, though the family has no wish to leave, they may think about it if the unfriendliness persists.
“I find it really odd that in a nation where migrants are required, nobody is promoting a beneficial narrative about immigration at all,” he added. “I consider the demonisation very peculiar and frightening, long-term.”