Leading UK legal professionals have issued warnings about a political “downward spiral”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a potential leadership candidate suggested that large numbers of lawfully resident households must be deported.
Divisive Remarks on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a party enforcer, stated that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their right to stay cancelled, to ensure the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Tory leader, the party head, later distanced herself from Lam’s statement recently.
While the leader initially said the remarks were “generally consistent” with party policy, she later reverted to current rules that only revoke permanent residency status if someone has broken the law. Nevertheless, the statement has raised alarms for many as a indication of “dangerous times” and belonging to a larger political discourse.
Growing Trend of Immigration Criticism
In the past few months, politicians across various groups have absorbed anti-immigration language 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 main route for immigration to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “island of strangers” without tougher immigration policies.
“It’s hard to believe that the ramifications of that phrase were not comprehended, and it was appealing to a specific group,” said Martin Forde KC, who has examined claims of discrimination within the opposition party.
The barrister, whose family migrated from the West Indies, 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 generations of people who had served the country, should still experience anxiety.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” added Forde. “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 benefits of migration.
“The rhetoric has to evolve and has to be accurate.”
Public Sentiment and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has surged in the polls, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to London, 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 elected officials focus on migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has acted for hundreds of affected individuals at the heart of the Windrush scandal, in which UK citizens from the Commonwealth residing in the UK lawfully were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
The lawyer said her father, who moved to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the present debate. Recently, her child has questioned whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Now we’re getting young people in their twenties and thirties who have got two generations ahead of them, born in Britain, feeling less than,” 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 spread so far when you start talking about removing and removing people who are legally in the country, and vast numbers 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 shared that the new proposals floated by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and characterized the wider political debate as racist, frightening and hostile.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a person with dual nationality living in Manchester with his wife and children, said the growing support of the party in the polls had pushed him to get his UK passport. For the last several years he has gone through the procedure of securing ILR – at a huge financial cost – after relocating to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the proposed policies be implemented, he fears his family would be split up.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said the man, 37. “Who knows how this unfolds in two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no problems”, Darwazeh has been concerned by the increase of St George’s flags in his neighbourhood, a practice that has been widely co-opted by the far-right and anti-immigration protesters. Long-term, though the family has no wish to leave, they may consider it if the unfriendliness persists.
“It’s strange that in a country where immigrants are required, no one’s actually selling a positive story about immigration at all,” he remarked. “I consider the demonisation very peculiar and terrifying, long-term.”
