Prominent UK legal professionals 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.
Controversial Statement on Residency Rights
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister and a Tory whip, stated that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their right to stay revoked, to ensure the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Conservative leader, the party head, later retreated from these comments recently.
While the leader initially said the remarks were “generally consistent” with party policy, she later reverted to existing policy that only revoke permanent residency status if someone has committed a crime. However, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a signal of “perilous periods” and belonging to a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In the past few months, politicians across political parties have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and repeated policies that were once considered fringe. Lately, a Reform UK leader expressed dissatisfaction about “numerous advertisements” seemingly including “ethnic minorities”, and in September, the party’s leader, Nigel Farage, pledged to eliminate the primary pathway for immigration to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK risked becoming an “island of strangers” without tougher immigration policies.
“I don’t accept 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.
Forde, whose parents emigrated from the West Indies, said the remarks were a “thinly disguised keep Britain white campaign”. The leading barrister said the present political debate was an “utter condemnation” that someone like himself, from generations of people who had served the country, should still feel insecure.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” continued Forde. “It’s desperate to see Labour feeling the sole solution to Reform is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually discuss the positives of immigration.
“The rhetoric has to evolve and has to be truthful.”
Public Sentiment and Far-Right Activity
Backing for the party has increased in the surveys, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to the capital, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the situation are similar to extremist rallies from decades past and fearful the UK is “regressing” as politicians focus on migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of victims at the heart of the residency controversy, in which Britons from the former empire residing in the UK legally were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
The lawyer said her parent, who emigrated to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the current discourse. Lately, her child has questioned whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Currently we see young people in their 20s and 30s who have got two generations ahead of them, born in Britain, feeling less than,” said McKenzie.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for most political parties,” she added. “The tenets of this, the reach of it spread so far when you start talking about deporting and removing people who are lawfully resident, and vast numbers of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
People with permanent residency, or with partners who hold this status, have expressed that the recent policies floated by political figures have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and characterized the wider political debate as racist, frightening and hostile.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a dual British-Jordanian citizen living in Manchester with his family, said the growing support of the party in the surveys had motivated him to get his British citizenship. For the past six years he has gone through the procedure of obtaining ILR – at a huge financial cost – after relocating to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the proposed policies be enacted, he worries his family would be split up.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said Darwazeh, in his thirties. “It’s uncertain how this plays out in two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no issues”, he has been alarmed by the proliferation of St George’s flags in his area, 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 hostility persists.
“It’s strange that in a country where immigrants 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, for the future.”
