Leading UK legal professionals have issued warnings about a political “downward spiral”, after a Conservative MP seen as a potential leadership candidate suggested that significant quantities of lawfully resident households must be removed from the country.
Controversial Statement on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister and a Tory whip, remarked that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their permission to remain revoked, to guarantee the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Tory leader, the party head, later retreated from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While the leader initially said the remarks were “generally consistent” with official stance, she later returned to current rules that only revoke indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has committed a crime. However, the statement has sparked concern for many as a indication of “dangerous times” and belonging to a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Immigration Criticism
In recent months, politicians across various groups have absorbed anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed policies that were once considered fringe. Lately, a Reform UK leader complained about “every advert” seemingly featuring “ethnic minorities”, and in September, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for immigration to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK risked becoming an “nation of foreigners” without tougher immigration policies.
“It’s hard to believe that the ramifications 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.
Forde, whose family migrated from the Caribbean, 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 contributed to the country, should still experience anxiety.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” continued the lawyer. “It’s desperate to see the opposition feeling the sole solution to the rival party is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually discuss the positives of migration.
“The language has to change and has to be truthful.”
Public Sentiment and Extremist Movements
Backing for the party has surged in the polls, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to London, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the situation are reminiscent of extremist rallies from previous eras and concerned the UK is “regressing” as elected officials focus on migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has acted for hundreds of affected individuals at the heart of the Windrush scandal, in which Britons from the former empire residing in the UK legally were mistakenly categorized as illegal migrants.
The lawyer said her parent, who emigrated to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the present debate. Lately, her child has questioned whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Now we’re getting kids in their twenties and thirties who have got two generations ahead of them, born in Britain, experiencing insecurity,” said the attorney.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a acceptable political direction for most political parties,” she added. “The tenets of this, the tentacles of it extend widely when you start talking about deporting and removing people who are lawfully resident, and millions of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
People with ILR status, or with partners who hold this status, have shared that the recent policies suggested by political figures have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and characterized the broader political anti-migrant discourse as racist, frightening and hostile.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a person with dual nationality living in Manchester with his wife and children, 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 procedure of obtaining ILR – at a huge financial cost – after moving to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the proposed policies be implemented, 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 unfolds in the coming years.”
While in daily life, he has “no issues”, 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 anti-immigration protesters. Long-term, though the family has no wish to leave, they may think about it if the unfriendliness persists.
“It’s strange that in a nation where migrants are required, no one’s actually selling a positive story about migration at all,” he remarked. “I just find the demonisation very peculiar and frightening, for the future.”
