Prominent UK legal professionals have issued warnings about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Conservative MP seen as a potential leadership candidate proposed that significant quantities of lawfully resident households must be deported.
Divisive Remarks on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister 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 mostly “culturally coherent”. The Tory leader, the party head, later retreated from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While the leader initially said the remarks were “broadly in line” with official stance, she later reverted to existing policy that only withdraw permanent residency status if someone has broken the law. Nevertheless, the statement has raised alarms for many as a indication of “perilous periods” and part of a broader political conversation.
Escalating Pattern of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, leaders across various groups have absorbed anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed policies that were once seen as extreme. Most recently, a political party leader expressed dissatisfaction about “numerous advertisements” seemingly including “black and Asian people”, and in September, the party’s leader, Nigel Farage, pledged to eliminate the primary pathway for immigration to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer 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 phrase were not comprehended, and it was appealing to a particular audience,” said Martin Forde KC, who has investigated claims of racism within the opposition party.
Forde, whose family emigrated from the Caribbean, said the remarks were a barely concealed keep Britain white campaign”. The legal expert said the present political debate was an “utter condemnation” that someone like himself, from generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still feel insecure.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” added the lawyer. “It’s alarming to see the opposition feeling the only answer to the rival party is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually talk about the positives of migration.
“The rhetoric has to evolve and has to be accurate.”
National Mood and Extremist Movements
Backing for the party has surged in the polls, and far-right marches have drawn thousands to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances are similar to extremist rallies from previous eras and concerned the UK is “regressing” as elected officials focus on migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has represented hundreds of victims at the centre of the residency controversy, in which Britons from the former empire living in the UK lawfully were mistakenly categorized as illegal migrants.
McKenzie said her parent, who emigrated to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the current discourse. Recently, her daughter has asked whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Now we’re getting young people in their 20s and 30s who have got multiple generations ahead of them, UK-born, feeling less than,” said McKenzie.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for most political parties,” she continued. “The principles here, the tentacles of it spread so far when you start talking about deporting and expelling people who are lawfully resident, 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 recent policies floated by political figures have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and characterized the broader political anti-migrant discourse as discriminatory, alarming and hostile.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a person with dual nationality residing in the city with his family, said the recent surge of the party in the surveys had motivated him to get his British citizenship. For the past six years he has gone through the process of obtaining permanent residency – at a huge financial cost – after moving to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the proposed policies be enacted, he fears his family would be split up.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said Darwazeh, 37. “It’s uncertain how this unfolds in the coming years.”
While day to day, he has “no issues”, he has been alarmed by the proliferation of St George’s flags in his neighbourhood, a trend that has been widely adopted by the far-right and anti-immigration protesters. In the future, 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 required, no one’s actually selling a beneficial narrative about immigration at all,” he remarked. “I just find the vilification very peculiar and frightening, long-term.”
