Leading British legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Tory lawmaker seen as a potential leadership candidate proposed that large numbers of lawfully resident households must be deported.
Divisive Remarks 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 permission to remain cancelled, to ensure the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Tory leader, the party head, later distanced herself from these comments recently.
While Badenoch initially said the statement were “broadly in line” with official stance, she later returned to existing policy that only withdraw indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has broken the law. However, the statement has raised alarms for many as a indication of “dangerous times” and belonging to a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, politicians across various groups have absorbed anti-migrant rhetoric and repeated policies that were once considered fringe. Lately, a political party leader complained about “every advert” seemingly including “ethnic minorities”, and in September, the party’s leader, Nigel Farage, pledged to eliminate the primary pathway for migrants to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “nation of foreigners” without stricter border controls.
“It’s hard to believe that the implications of that phrase were not comprehended, and it was targeting a specific group,” said Martin Forde KC, who has examined claims of racism within Labour.
The barrister, whose family emigrated from the West Indies, 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 multiple generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still experience anxiety.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” continued the lawyer. “It’s alarming to see the opposition feeling the only answer to Reform is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually discuss the positives of immigration.
“The rhetoric has to change and has to be accurate.”
National Mood and Extremist Movements
Backing for the party has increased in the polls, and far-right marches have drawn thousands to the capital, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the circumstances are similar to far-right marches from decades past and concerned the UK is “regressing” as politicians focus on migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has acted for hundreds of victims at the centre of the residency controversy, in which UK citizens from the former empire residing in the UK lawfully were classed wrongly as unauthorized immigrants.
The lawyer said her father, who emigrated to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the present debate. Lately, her child has questioned whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Now we’re getting young people in their twenties and thirties who have got multiple generations ahead of them, UK-born, experiencing insecurity,” said the attorney.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-migrant sentiment 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 expelling people who are legally in the country, and millions of them as well. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
People with ILR status, or with spouses who hold this status, have shared that the recent policies floated by political figures have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and characterized the wider political debate as discriminatory, frightening and unwelcoming.
One individual, a person with dual nationality living in the city with his family, said the recent surge of Reform in the polls had pushed him to get his UK passport. For the last several years he has gone through the procedure of obtaining ILR – at a huge financial cost – 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 not occur,” said Darwazeh, in his thirties. “It’s uncertain how this plays out in the coming years.”
While day to day, he has “no issues”, he has been alarmed by the increase of national symbols in his area, a practice that has been widely adopted by the far-right and anti-immigration protesters. In the future, though the family has no wish to leave, they may consider it if the unfriendliness continues.
“I find it really odd that in a country where migrants are required, no one’s actually selling a beneficial narrative about immigration at all,” he added. “I consider the vilification very odd and terrifying, for the future.”
