Prominent UK legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Conservative MP considered a potential leadership candidate proposed that large numbers 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, remarked that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their right to stay revoked, to ensure the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, later distanced herself from these comments last Thursday.
While the leader initially said the statement 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. However, the proposal has sparked concern for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and belonging to a larger political discourse.
Escalating Pattern of Immigration Criticism
In recent months, politicians across political parties have absorbed anti-immigration language and repeated policies that were once seen as extreme. Lately, a Reform UK leader expressed dissatisfaction about “numerous advertisements” seemingly featuring “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the party’s leader, Nigel Farage, pledged to eliminate the main route for migrants to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK risked becoming an “nation of foreigners” without tougher immigration policies.
“I don’t accept that the implications of that phrase were not comprehended, and it was targeting a particular audience,” said Martin Forde KC, who has investigated claims of racism within the opposition party.
The barrister, whose family migrated from the West Indies, said the remarks were a “thinly disguised racial purity campaign”. The legal expert said the current political discourse was an “utter condemnation” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still experience anxiety.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” added the lawyer. “It’s alarming to see the opposition feeling the sole solution to Reform is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually discuss the positives of migration.
“The rhetoric has to change and has to be truthful.”
National Mood and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has increased in the surveys, and far-right marches have drawn thousands to London, leaving many minority ethnic Britons 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 an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of victims at the centre of the residency controversy, in which Britons from the former empire living in the UK legally were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
The lawyer said her parent, who moved to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the present debate. Lately, her child has asked whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Currently we see kids in their twenties and thirties who have got multiple generations ahead of them, born in Britain, feeling less than,” said the attorney.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for many groups,” she continued. “The tenets of this, the tentacles of it extend widely when you start talking about deporting and removing people who are legally in the country, and millions of them as well. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
People with permanent residency, or with spouses who hold this status, have shared that the recent policies floated by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and described the wider political debate as racist, frightening and hostile.
One individual, a person with dual nationality residing in Manchester with his family, said the recent surge of Reform in the polls had motivated him to get his British citizenship. For the past six years he has gone through the process of securing ILR – at a significant expense – after moving to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the suggested changes be implemented, he worries his family would be separated.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said the man, 37. “It’s uncertain how this unfolds in the coming years.”
While day to day, he has “no problems”, Darwazeh has been alarmed by the proliferation of national symbols in his area, a trend that has been widely co-opted by the extremist groups and immigration opponents. Long-term, though the family has no desire to leave, they may consider it if the hostility persists.
“It’s strange that in a nation where immigrants are needed, nobody is promoting a beneficial narrative about migration at all,” he remarked. “I consider the vilification very peculiar and terrifying, long-term.”
