Prominent British legal professionals have issued warnings about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a potential leadership candidate suggested that significant quantities of lawfully resident households must be removed from the country.
Divisive Remarks on Residency Rights
Katie Lam, 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 ensure the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, later retreated from these comments recently.
While the leader initially said the statement were “broadly in line” with official stance, she later returned to existing policy that only revoke permanent residency status if someone has committed a crime. Nevertheless, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and belonging to a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, politicians across various groups have absorbed anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed proposals that were once considered fringe. Lately, a political party leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly including “ethnic minorities”, and in September, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to eliminate the primary pathway for immigration to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK risked becoming an “nation of foreigners” without tougher immigration policies.
“It’s hard to believe that the ramifications of that phrase were not comprehended, and it was appealing to a particular audience,” said a leading barrister, who has examined claims of discrimination within Labour.
Forde, whose parents migrated from the Caribbean, said Lam’s comments were a “thinly disguised racial purity campaign”. The legal expert said the current political discourse was an “utter condemnation” that someone like himself, from generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still experience anxiety.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” added the lawyer. “It’s alarming to see Labour feeling the sole solution to Reform is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually talk about the positives of migration.
“The language has to change and has to be truthful.”
National Mood and Far-Right Activity
Backing for the party has surged in the polls, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to the capital, leaving many British people of colour feeling the situation are similar to far-right marches from decades past and concerned the UK is “going backwards” as politicians focus on migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of affected individuals at the centre of the residency controversy, in which UK citizens from the Commonwealth residing in the UK legally were mistakenly categorized as unauthorized immigrants.
The lawyer said her father, 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 Caribbean passports.
“Now we’re getting young people in their 20s and 30s who have got two generations ahead of them, born in Britain, feeling less than,” said the attorney.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for most political parties,” she continued. “The tenets of this, the reach of it spread so far when you start talking about deporting and expelling people who are legally in the country, and vast numbers of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
Individuals with ILR status, or with partners who hold this status, have shared that the new proposals suggested by political figures have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and characterized the broader political anti-migrant discourse as racist, alarming and hostile.
One individual, a dual British-Jordanian citizen residing in Manchester with his family, said the growing support of the party in the surveys had motivated him to get his UK passport. For the past six years he has gone through the process of obtaining permanent residency – at a significant expense – after moving to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the proposed policies be enacted, he fears his family would be separated.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said the man, in his thirties. “Who knows how this unfolds in two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no problems”, Darwazeh has been alarmed by the proliferation of national symbols in his neighbourhood, a practice that has been widely adopted by the far-right and immigration opponents. In the future, though the family has no desire to leave, they may think about it if the hostility continues.
“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 added. “I just find the demonisation very peculiar and terrifying, long-term.”
