Prominent British legal professionals have issued warnings about a political “downward spiral”, after a Conservative MP seen as a potential leadership candidate proposed that significant quantities of lawfully resident households must be deported.
Controversial Statement on Residency Rights
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister and a Tory whip, remarked that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their permission to remain revoked, to ensure the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, later distanced herself from these comments last Thursday.
While Badenoch initially said the statement were “broadly in line” with party policy, she later returned to current rules that only withdraw permanent residency status if someone has broken the law. However, the statement has raised alarms for many as a indication of “perilous periods” and belonging to a larger political discourse.
Growing Trend of Immigration Criticism
In the past few months, politicians across political parties have absorbed anti-migrant rhetoric and repeated policies that were once considered fringe. Most recently, a political party leader expressed dissatisfaction about “every advert” seemingly including “black and Asian people”, and in September, the group’s head, the figurehead, pledged to eliminate the primary pathway for immigration to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “island of strangers” without tougher immigration policies.
“It’s hard to believe that the implications of that phrase were not fully understood, and it was targeting a particular audience,” said Martin Forde KC, who has investigated claims of discrimination within Labour.
The barrister, whose family emigrated from the West Indies, said Lam’s comments were a barely concealed keep Britain white campaign”. The leading barrister said the current political discourse was an “utter condemnation” that someone like himself, from generations of people who had served the country, should still experience anxiety.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” added the lawyer. “It’s alarming to see Labour feeling the sole solution to the rival party is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually discuss the benefits of immigration.
“The rhetoric has to evolve and has to be truthful.”
National Mood and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has increased in the surveys, and extremist demonstrations have attracted large crowds to the capital, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances are similar to far-right marches from previous eras and concerned the UK is “going backwards” as politicians focus on migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has acted for hundreds of affected individuals at the centre of the residency controversy, in which Britons from the former empire residing in the UK lawfully were mistakenly categorized as unauthorized immigrants.
McKenzie said her parent, who moved to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the present debate. Recently, her daughter has asked whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Now we’re getting kids in their 20s and 30s who have got two generations ahead of them, born in Britain, feeling less than,” 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 tenets of this, the tentacles of it extend widely when you start talking about removing and expelling people who are legally in the country, and millions of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
Individuals with permanent residency, or with spouses who hold this status, have expressed that the recent policies suggested by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and characterized the broader political anti-migrant discourse as discriminatory, frightening and hostile.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a person with dual nationality residing in the city with his family, said the growing support of Reform in the surveys had pushed him to get his UK passport. For the last several years he has gone through the process of obtaining permanent residency – at a huge financial cost – after moving to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the suggested changes be enacted, he worries his family would be split up.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said the man, in his thirties. “It’s uncertain how this plays out in two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no issues”, Darwazeh has been alarmed by the proliferation of St George’s flags in his area, a trend that has been widely adopted by the far-right and anti-immigration protesters. In the future, though the family has no desire to leave, they may think about it if the hostility continues.
“I find it really odd that in a country where immigrants are needed, no one’s actually selling a beneficial narrative about immigration at all,” he added. “I just find the vilification very peculiar and frightening, for the future.”
