Leading British attorneys have raised alarms about a political “downward spiral”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a future party leader suggested that large numbers of legally settled families must be removed from the country.
Divisive Remarks on Residency Rights
Katie Lam, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a party enforcer, stated that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their permission to remain cancelled, to guarantee the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Conservative leader, the party head, later distanced herself from these comments recently.
While the leader initially said the statement were “generally consistent” with party policy, she later reverted to current rules that only revoke permanent residency status if someone has committed a crime. However, the statement has sparked concern for many as a indication of “dangerous times” and part of a larger political discourse.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, politicians across various groups have adopted anti-immigration language and echoed policies that were once considered fringe. Most recently, a political party leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly including “black and Asian people”, and in last autumn, the party’s leader, Nigel Farage, pledged to abolish the main route for migrants to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “island of strangers” without stricter border controls.
“It’s hard to believe that the implications of that phrase were not fully understood, and it was targeting a specific group,” said Martin Forde KC, who has examined claims of discrimination within the opposition party.
Forde, whose family migrated from the Caribbean, said the remarks were a “thinly disguised racial purity campaign”. The legal expert said the present political debate was an “absolute indictment” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had served the country, should still feel insecure.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” continued Forde. “It’s alarming to see the opposition feeling the only answer to the rival party is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually discuss the positives of immigration.
“The rhetoric has to change and has to be accurate.”
National Mood and Extremist Movements
Backing for the party has increased in the surveys, and far-right marches have drawn thousands to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances are similar to far-right marches from previous eras and concerned the UK is “regressing” as politicians focus on migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of victims at the heart of the Windrush scandal, in which UK citizens from the former empire living in the UK legally were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
The lawyer said her father, who moved to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the current discourse. Lately, her child has questioned whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Now we’re getting young people in their twenties and thirties who have got two generations ahead of them, born in Britain, feeling less than,” said McKenzie.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a acceptable political direction for most political parties,” she continued. “The tenets of this, the tentacles of it spread so far when you start talking about removing and removing people who are legally in the country, and millions of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
People with permanent residency, or with partners who hold this status, have shared that the new proposals floated by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and described the wider political debate as racist, frightening and unwelcoming.
One individual, a person with dual nationality residing in Manchester with his family, said the growing support of Reform in the polls had pushed 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 moving to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the proposed policies be implemented, he fears 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 plays out in two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no problems”, he has been alarmed by the proliferation of national symbols in his neighbourhood, a trend that has been widely co-opted by the extremist groups and anti-immigration protesters. Long-term, though the family has no desire to leave, they may consider it if the hostility persists.
“I find it really odd that in a country where migrants are needed, no one’s actually selling a positive story about migration at all,” he added. “I consider the demonisation very odd and terrifying, long-term.”
