Leading UK attorneys have issued warnings about a political “downward spiral”, after a Tory lawmaker seen as a potential leadership candidate suggested that significant quantities of legally settled families must be deported.
Controversial Statement on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister and a Tory whip, stated that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their right to stay cancelled, to ensure the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, later retreated from Lam’s statement recently.
While Badenoch initially said the statement were “generally consistent” with party policy, she later returned to current rules that only withdraw permanent residency status if someone has committed a crime. However, the proposal has sparked concern for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and part of a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Immigration Criticism
In recent months, politicians across political parties have absorbed anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed policies that were once seen as extreme. Most recently, a Reform UK leader complained about “every advert” seemingly featuring “black and Asian people”, and in last autumn, the group’s head, Nigel Farage, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for immigration to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “nation of foreigners” without stricter border controls.
“I don’t accept that the ramifications of that phrase were not fully understood, and it was targeting a specific group,” said a leading barrister, who has investigated claims of racism within Labour.
Forde, whose parents migrated from the Caribbean, said Lam’s comments were a “thinly disguised keep Britain white campaign”. The leading barrister said the current political discourse was an “utter condemnation” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still experience anxiety.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” continued the lawyer. “It’s desperate to see the opposition feeling the only answer to Reform is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually talk about the benefits of immigration.
“The language has to evolve and has to be accurate.”
Public Sentiment and Extremist Movements
Support for Reform has surged in the polls, and extremist demonstrations have attracted large crowds to the capital, 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.
“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 legally were mistakenly categorized as unauthorized immigrants.
The lawyer said her father, who moved to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the present debate. Lately, her child has asked whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Currently we see kids in their twenties and thirties who have got multiple generations ahead of them, born in Britain, feeling less than,” said McKenzie.
“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 tentacles of it extend widely when you start talking about deporting and expelling people who are legally in the country, and millions of them as well. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
Individuals with permanent residency, or with partners who hold this status, have expressed that the new proposals floated by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as racist, alarming and hostile.
One individual, a person with dual nationality residing in Manchester 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 past six years he has gone through the procedure of obtaining permanent residency – at a significant expense – after moving to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the suggested changes be implemented, he fears his family would be split up.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said Darwazeh, in his thirties. “Who knows how this unfolds in the coming years.”
While in daily life, he has “no issues”, Darwazeh has been alarmed by the increase of national symbols in his area, a trend that has been widely co-opted by the extremist groups and immigration opponents. Long-term, though the household has no desire to leave, they may consider it if the unfriendliness persists.
“It’s strange that in a country where immigrants are required, nobody is promoting a positive story about immigration at all,” he added. “I consider the vilification very odd and frightening, for the future.”
