Prominent British attorneys have raised alarms about a political “downward spiral”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a future party leader proposed that significant quantities of legally settled families must be removed from the country.
Divisive Remarks on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a party enforcer, remarked that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their permission to remain cancelled, to ensure the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, later distanced herself 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 withdraw permanent residency status if someone has broken the law. However, the statement has sparked concern for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and part of a broader political conversation.
Escalating Pattern of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In the past few months, politicians across political parties have adopted anti-immigration language and repeated proposals that were once seen as extreme. Lately, a political party leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly including “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the party’s leader, Nigel Farage, pledged to abolish the main route for migrants to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “island of strangers” without stricter border controls.
“It’s hard to believe that the ramifications of that statement were not comprehended, and it was targeting a particular audience,” said Martin Forde KC, who has investigated claims of racism within the opposition party.
Forde, whose family emigrated from the Caribbean, said the remarks were a “thinly disguised racial purity campaign”. The legal expert said the current political discourse was an “absolute indictment” that someone like himself, from generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still experience anxiety.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” added Forde. “It’s desperate to see the opposition feeling the sole solution to Reform is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually talk about the benefits of immigration.
“The rhetoric has to evolve and has to be truthful.”
National Mood and Far-Right Activity
Backing for the party has increased in the polls, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to the capital, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances are reminiscent of far-right marches from decades past and fearful the UK is “regressing” as elected officials focus on migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has represented hundreds of victims at the heart of the Windrush scandal, in which UK citizens from the former empire living in the UK lawfully were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
The lawyer said her father, who moved to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the present debate. Lately, her daughter has questioned 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, UK-born, feeling less than,” said McKenzie.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for many groups,” she added. “The tenets of this, the tentacles of it extend widely when you start talking about removing and expelling people who are lawfully resident, and vast numbers of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
People with ILR status, or with partners who hold this status, have expressed that the recent policies floated by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as racist, frightening and unwelcoming.
One individual, a person with dual nationality living in Manchester with his wife and children, said the growing support of the party in the surveys had pushed him to get his UK passport. For the last several 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 separated.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said the man, in his thirties. “Who knows how this unfolds in the coming years.”
While in daily life, he has “no problems”, he has been concerned by the proliferation of St George’s flags in his neighbourhood, a practice that has been widely co-opted by the far-right and immigration opponents. Long-term, though the household has no desire to leave, they may think about it if the unfriendliness persists.
“It’s strange that in a country where immigrants are needed, nobody is promoting a positive story about immigration at all,” he added. “I consider the vilification very peculiar and frightening, long-term.”
