Leading UK attorneys have raised alarms about a political “downward spiral”, after a Conservative MP considered a future party leader suggested that significant quantities of legally settled families must be removed from the country.
Controversial Statement on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister and a party enforcer, remarked that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their right to stay revoked, to guarantee the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, later retreated from Lam’s statement recently.
While Badenoch initially said the remarks were “broadly in line” with official stance, she later returned to existing policy that only revoke indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has broken the law. Nevertheless, the statement has sparked concern for many as a indication of “dangerous times” and belonging to a larger political discourse.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, politicians across political parties have adopted anti-immigration language and repeated proposals that were once considered fringe. Most recently, a Reform UK leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly including “black and Asian people”, and in September, the party’s leader, Nigel Farage, pledged to abolish the main route for immigration to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “nation of foreigners” without tougher immigration policies.
“I don’t accept that the ramifications of that statement were not comprehended, and it was targeting a particular audience,” said a leading barrister, who has examined claims of discrimination within the opposition party.
The barrister, whose parents migrated from the West Indies, said Lam’s comments were a barely concealed racial purity campaign”. The leading barrister 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 experience anxiety.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” added Forde. “It’s desperate to see Labour feeling the only answer to Reform is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually talk about the positives of migration.
“The rhetoric has to change and has to be accurate.”
National Mood and Extremist Movements
Backing for the party has increased in the polls, and extremist demonstrations have drawn thousands to the capital, leaving many British people of colour feeling the situation are reminiscent of far-right marches from decades past and concerned the UK is “going backwards” as politicians focus on migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has represented hundreds of affected individuals at the centre of the Windrush scandal, in which UK citizens from the former empire living 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 rolling in his grave over the current discourse. Lately, her child has asked whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Currently we see kids in their 20s and 30s who have got multiple generations ahead of them, UK-born, experiencing insecurity,” said the attorney.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a acceptable political direction for most political parties,” she added. “The tenets of this, the reach of it extend widely when you start talking about deporting and expelling people who are lawfully resident, and vast numbers of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
Individuals with ILR status, or with partners 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 characterized the broader political anti-migrant discourse as discriminatory, alarming and hostile.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a person with dual nationality living in Manchester with his wife and children, said the recent surge of Reform in the surveys had motivated him to get his British citizenship. For the last several years he has gone through the process of obtaining ILR – at a huge financial cost – after relocating to the UK on a marriage permit. 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 never happen,” said the man, 37. “It’s uncertain how this unfolds in two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no issues”, Darwazeh has been concerned by the proliferation of St George’s flags in his neighbourhood, a trend that has been widely adopted by the extremist groups and immigration opponents. Long-term, though the family has no desire to leave, they may think about it if the hostility continues.
“It’s strange that in a nation where migrants are needed, no one’s actually selling a positive story about migration at all,” he added. “I just find the vilification very peculiar and frightening, long-term.”
