Leading UK attorneys have raised alarms about a political “downward spiral”, after a Conservative MP seen as a future party leader suggested that large numbers of legally settled families must be deported.
Divisive Remarks on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a Tory whip, remarked that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their right to stay revoked, to ensure the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Conservative leader, the party head, later retreated from Lam’s statement recently.
While the leader initially said the statement were “generally consistent” with official stance, she later returned to current rules that only revoke indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has committed a crime. Nevertheless, the proposal has sparked concern for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and belonging to a broader political conversation.
Escalating Pattern of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, leaders across political parties have absorbed anti-immigration language and echoed policies that were once considered fringe. Lately, a political party leader complained about “every advert” seemingly including “black and Asian people”, and in September, the group’s head, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the main route for migrants to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK risked becoming an “nation of foreigners” without tougher immigration policies.
“I don’t accept that the implications of that statement were not comprehended, and it was appealing to a specific group,” said Martin Forde KC, who has examined claims of racism within the opposition party.
Forde, whose parents emigrated from the Caribbean, said the remarks were a “thinly disguised racial purity campaign”. The legal expert said the present political debate was an “utter condemnation” 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,” added the lawyer. “It’s alarming to see the opposition feeling the sole solution to Reform is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually talk about the positives of migration.
“The language 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 the capital, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the situation 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 Jacqueline McKenzie, who has represented hundreds of victims at the centre of the Windrush scandal, in which Britons from the Commonwealth living in the UK lawfully were classed wrongly as unauthorized immigrants.
McKenzie said her parent, who emigrated to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the current discourse. 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 multiple generations ahead of them, UK-born, experiencing insecurity,” 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 principles here, the tentacles of it extend widely when you start talking about removing and expelling people who are legally in the country, and vast numbers of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
People with ILR status, or with spouses who hold this status, have shared that the recent policies suggested by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and described the wider political debate as discriminatory, alarming and hostile.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a person with dual nationality living in the city with his family, said the recent surge of Reform in the surveys had pushed 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 relocating to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the proposed policies be enacted, he worries his family would be split up.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said the man, 37. “It’s uncertain how this plays out in two, three years.”
While in daily life, he has “no problems”, he has been alarmed by the increase of national symbols in his area, a practice that has been widely co-opted by the far-right and anti-immigration protesters. In the future, though the household has no wish to leave, they may think about it if the unfriendliness persists.
“It’s strange that in a nation where immigrants are needed, nobody is promoting a positive story about immigration at all,” he added. “I consider the vilification very peculiar and terrifying, long-term.”
