Leading UK legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Conservative MP seen as a potential leadership candidate suggested that significant quantities of lawfully resident households must be deported.
Divisive Remarks on Residency Rights
The MP, a shadow Home Office minister and a party enforcer, stated that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their right to stay cancelled, to guarantee the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Conservative leader, the party head, later distanced herself from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While Badenoch initially said the remarks were “broadly in line” with party policy, she later returned to existing policy that only withdraw permanent residency status if someone has committed a crime. Nevertheless, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a indication of “dangerous times” and belonging to a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Immigration Criticism
In the past few months, politicians across political parties have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed proposals that were once seen as extreme. Most recently, a political party leader complained about “every advert” seemingly including “black and Asian people”, and in last autumn, the party’s leader, Nigel Farage, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for migrants to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “nation of foreigners” without tougher immigration policies.
“It’s hard to believe that the ramifications of that statement were not comprehended, and it was appealing to a particular audience,” said a leading barrister, who has investigated claims of discrimination within Labour.
Forde, whose parents migrated from the Caribbean, 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,” added Forde. “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 positives of immigration.
“The rhetoric has to evolve and has to be accurate.”
National Mood and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has surged in the surveys, and extremist demonstrations have attracted large crowds to London, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the circumstances are reminiscent of far-right marches from decades past and fearful the UK is “regressing” as politicians focus on migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has acted for hundreds of victims at the heart of the Windrush scandal, in which Britons from the former empire residing in the UK lawfully were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
McKenzie said her parent, who moved to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the present debate. Recently, her child has asked 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, experiencing insecurity,” said the attorney.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for many groups,” she added. “The tenets of this, the reach of it extend widely when you start talking about removing and removing people who are lawfully resident, and vast numbers of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
People with ILR status, or with partners who hold this status, have shared that the new proposals suggested by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as discriminatory, frightening and unwelcoming.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a dual British-Jordanian citizen living in Manchester with his family, said the growing support of Reform in the surveys had pushed him to get his UK passport. For the past six years he has gone through the process of securing permanent residency – at a significant expense – after moving to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the proposed policies be implemented, he fears his family would be split up.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said Darwazeh, in his thirties. “Who knows 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 area, a practice that has been widely adopted by the far-right and anti-immigration protesters. Long-term, though the household has no wish to leave, they may consider it if the unfriendliness continues.
“It’s strange that in a country where migrants are required, no one’s actually selling a positive story about migration at all,” he added. “I just find the vilification very odd and frightening, long-term.”
