Leading UK legal professionals have issued warnings about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Tory lawmaker seen as a future party leader proposed that large numbers of lawfully resident households must be deported.
Divisive Remarks on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister and a Tory whip, stated that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their right to stay cancelled, to guarantee the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, later distanced herself from Lam’s statement recently.
While Badenoch initially said the statement were “broadly in line” with official stance, she later reverted to current rules that only withdraw indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has broken the law. Nevertheless, the statement has sparked concern for many as a signal of “perilous periods” and part of a larger political discourse.
Escalating Pattern of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In the past few months, leaders across political parties have adopted anti-immigration language and repeated policies 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 group’s head, the figurehead, pledged to eliminate the main route for migrants to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “island of strangers” without stricter border controls.
“I don’t accept that the implications of that statement were not comprehended, and it was appealing to a particular audience,” said Martin Forde KC, who has investigated claims of racism 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 legal expert said the current political discourse 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 the lawyer. “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 benefits of immigration.
“The language has to evolve and has to be accurate.”
National Mood and Extremist Movements
Support for Reform has increased in the polls, and extremist demonstrations have drawn thousands to London, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the situation are similar to extremist rallies from previous eras and concerned the UK is “regressing” as politicians target migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has acted for hundreds of affected individuals at the heart of the residency controversy, in which Britons from the former empire living in the UK legally were classed wrongly as unauthorized immigrants.
The lawyer said her parent, who moved to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the current discourse. Lately, her daughter has asked whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Currently we see kids in their twenties and thirties who have got multiple generations ahead of them, UK-born, experiencing insecurity,” said McKenzie.
“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 deporting and removing people who are legally in the country, and vast numbers of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
Individuals with ILR status, or with spouses 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 discriminatory, alarming and hostile.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a person with dual nationality residing in Manchester with his family, said the recent surge of Reform in the surveys had pushed him to get his British citizenship. For the last several years he has gone through the procedure of obtaining ILR – at a significant expense – after moving to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the proposed policies be enacted, he fears his family would be separated.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said the man, 37. “Who knows how this unfolds in two, three years.”
While in daily life, he has “no problems”, Darwazeh has been alarmed by the increase of national symbols in his area, a trend that has been widely co-opted by the extremist groups and anti-immigration protesters. Long-term, though the family has no wish to leave, they may think about it if the unfriendliness continues.
“It’s strange that in a nation where immigrants are required, no one’s actually selling a beneficial narrative about immigration at all,” he remarked. “I consider the vilification very peculiar and terrifying, for the future.”
