Leading UK attorneys have issued warnings about a political “downward spiral”, after a Tory lawmaker considered 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 party enforcer, stated that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their right to stay cancelled, to guarantee the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, later retreated from these comments recently.
While the leader initially said the remarks were “generally consistent” with official stance, she later reverted to current rules that only withdraw indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has committed a crime. However, the statement has sparked concern for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and part of a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Immigration Criticism
In the past few months, leaders across various groups have absorbed anti-immigration language and repeated policies that were once considered fringe. Lately, a political party leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly including “ethnic minorities”, and in September, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the main route for immigration 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.
“It’s hard to believe that the ramifications of that phrase were not fully understood, and it was appealing to a specific group,” said Martin Forde KC, who has examined claims of discrimination within the opposition party.
Forde, whose parents migrated from the Caribbean, said Lam’s comments were a “thinly disguised keep Britain white campaign”. The leading barrister said the present political debate was an “absolute indictment” that someone like himself, from generations of people who had served the country, should still feel insecure.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” added the lawyer. “It’s desperate to see Labour feeling the only answer to the rival party is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually discuss the positives of migration.
“The rhetoric has to evolve 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 London, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the situation are similar to far-right marches from previous eras and concerned the UK is “going backwards” as politicians target migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of affected individuals at the centre of the Windrush scandal, in which UK citizens from the former empire residing in the UK legally were classed wrongly as unauthorized immigrants.
McKenzie said her parent, who emigrated to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the present debate. Lately, her daughter has questioned whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Now we’re getting young people in their 20s and 30s who have got multiple generations ahead of them, UK-born, experiencing insecurity,” said McKenzie.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a acceptable political direction for many groups,” she added. “The principles here, the reach of it spread so far when you start talking about deporting and expelling people who are legally in the country, and vast numbers of them as well. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
People with permanent residency, or with partners who hold this status, have shared that the new proposals floated by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and characterized the wider political debate as racist, frightening and unwelcoming.
One individual, a dual British-Jordanian citizen residing in Manchester with his wife and children, said the recent surge of the party in the surveys had pushed him to get his British citizenship. For the past six years he has gone through the process of obtaining permanent residency – at a significant expense – after moving to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the proposed policies be enacted, he fears his family would be split up.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said the man, 37. “Who knows how this unfolds in the coming years.”
While in daily life, he has “no problems”, he has been concerned by the increase of national symbols in his area, a practice that has been widely co-opted by the far-right and anti-immigration protesters. Long-term, though the family has no desire to leave, they may consider it if the hostility continues.
“It’s strange that in a country where migrants are needed, nobody is promoting a positive story about migration at all,” he remarked. “I just find the demonisation very peculiar and terrifying, long-term.”
