Leading UK attorneys have issued warnings about a political “downward spiral”, after a Conservative MP seen as a future party leader suggested that large numbers of lawfully resident households must be deported.
Controversial Statement on Legal Status
The MP, a shadow Home Office minister and a party enforcer, remarked that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their permission to remain cancelled, to guarantee the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Conservative leader, the party head, later retreated from these comments last Thursday.
While Badenoch initially said the remarks were “generally consistent” with official stance, she later reverted to current rules that only revoke indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has committed a crime. However, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a indication of “perilous periods” and belonging to a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In the past few months, politicians across various groups have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed policies that were once considered fringe. Lately, a Reform UK leader expressed dissatisfaction about “every advert” seemingly featuring “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to eliminate the primary pathway for migrants to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “island of strangers” without tougher immigration policies.
“I don’t accept that the ramifications of that statement were not fully understood, and it was appealing to a specific group,” said Martin Forde KC, who has examined claims of discrimination within Labour.
The barrister, whose parents migrated from the Caribbean, said Lam’s comments were a barely concealed keep Britain white 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.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” added Forde. “It’s desperate to see Labour feeling the sole solution to Reform is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually talk about the positives of immigration.
“The rhetoric has to change and has to be truthful.”
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 British people of colour feeling the situation are reminiscent of extremist rallies from decades past and concerned the UK is “going backwards” as elected officials focus on migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has represented hundreds of victims at the heart of the Windrush scandal, in which Britons from the former empire living in the UK legally were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
McKenzie said her father, who moved to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the current discourse. Lately, her daughter has questioned 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 McKenzie.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a acceptable political direction for most political parties,” she continued. “The tenets of this, the tentacles of it spread so far when you start talking about removing and expelling people who are legally in the country, and vast numbers of them as well. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
Individuals 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 described the wider political debate as discriminatory, alarming and unwelcoming.
One individual, a dual British-Jordanian citizen residing in Manchester with his family, said the growing support of the party in the polls had pushed him to get his British citizenship. For the past six years he has gone through the procedure of obtaining ILR – at a huge financial cost – after moving to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the proposed policies be enacted, he fears his family would be separated.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said Darwazeh, 37. “Who knows how this unfolds in two, three years.”
While in daily life, he has “no issues”, Darwazeh has been alarmed by the increase of national symbols in his neighbourhood, a practice that has been widely co-opted by the far-right and anti-immigration protesters. In the future, though the household has no wish to leave, they may think about it if the unfriendliness continues.
“I find it really odd that in a country where migrants are required, nobody is promoting a positive story about immigration at all,” he remarked. “I just find the vilification very peculiar and frightening, long-term.”
