Prominent UK attorneys have issued warnings about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a future party leader proposed that significant quantities of lawfully resident households must be removed from the country.
Divisive Remarks on Residency Rights
Katie Lam, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a Tory whip, remarked that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their right to stay revoked, to guarantee the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Conservative leader, the party head, later retreated from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
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 committed a crime. However, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and part of a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In the past few months, leaders across various groups have adopted anti-immigration language and repeated policies that were once considered fringe. Lately, a Reform UK leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly featuring “black and Asian people”, and in September, the group’s head, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the main route for migrants to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer 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 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 “thinly disguised keep Britain white campaign”. The leading barrister said the current political discourse was an “utter condemnation” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had served the country, should still experience anxiety.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” added the lawyer. “It’s desperate to see the opposition feeling the only answer to the rival party is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually talk about the positives of immigration.
“The rhetoric has to evolve and has to be truthful.”
Public Sentiment and Far-Right Activity
Backing for the party has increased in the surveys, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the situation are reminiscent of far-right marches from previous eras and fearful the UK is “going backwards” 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 Windrush scandal, in which UK citizens from the Commonwealth living in the UK lawfully were classed wrongly as unauthorized immigrants.
The lawyer said her father, who emigrated to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the current discourse. Recently, her child has questioned whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Now we’re getting kids in their twenties and thirties who have got multiple generations ahead of them, born in Britain, 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 principles here, the reach of it spread so far 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?”
Personal Impact
People with permanent residency, or with spouses who hold this status, have shared that the new proposals floated by political figures have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and characterized the broader political anti-migrant discourse as discriminatory, alarming and unwelcoming.
One individual, a person with dual nationality residing in Manchester with his wife and children, said the recent surge of Reform in the polls had motivated him to get his British citizenship. For the last several years he has gone through the process of obtaining ILR – at a huge financial cost – after moving to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the proposed policies be implemented, he fears his family would be split up.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said the man, 37. “Who knows how this plays out in the coming years.”
While in daily life, he has “no problems”, Darwazeh has been concerned by the proliferation of St George’s flags in his neighbourhood, a trend that has been widely co-opted by the far-right and anti-immigration protesters. Long-term, though the family has no wish to leave, they may think about it if the hostility continues.
“It’s strange that in a nation where migrants are needed, no one’s actually selling a positive story about immigration at all,” he added. “I consider the vilification very peculiar and frightening, long-term.”
