Leading UK legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “downward spiral”, after a Conservative MP considered a potential leadership candidate suggested that significant quantities of lawfully resident households must be removed from the country.
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 revoked, to guarantee the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Conservative leader, the party head, later distanced herself from Lam’s statement recently.
While the leader initially said the statement were “broadly in line” with party policy, she later returned to existing policy that only withdraw permanent residency status if someone has broken the law. However, the statement has sparked concern for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and part of a larger political discourse.
Growing Trend of Immigration Criticism
In the past few months, politicians across political parties have absorbed anti-migrant rhetoric and repeated proposals that were once seen as extreme. Lately, a Reform UK leader complained about “every advert” seemingly featuring “ethnic minorities”, 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 risked becoming an “nation of foreigners” without tougher immigration policies.
“It’s hard to believe that the implications of that phrase were not comprehended, and it was appealing to a specific group,” said a leading barrister, who has examined claims of discrimination within Labour.
Forde, whose parents emigrated from the Caribbean, said the remarks were a barely concealed racial purity 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 feel insecure.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” added the lawyer. “It’s alarming to see Labour feeling the sole solution to the rival party is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually discuss the benefits of immigration.
“The language has to change and has to be truthful.”
National Mood and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform 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 similar to far-right marches from previous eras and concerned the UK is “going backwards” as politicians focus on migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has acted for hundreds of affected individuals at the centre of the Windrush scandal, in which UK citizens from the Commonwealth living in the UK legally were mistakenly categorized as unauthorized immigrants.
McKenzie said her parent, who moved to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the current discourse. Lately, her child has questioned whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Currently we see kids in their 20s and 30s who have got multiple generations ahead of them, UK-born, feeling less than,” said McKenzie.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for most political parties,” she added. “The principles here, the reach of it extend widely when you start talking about removing and removing people who are lawfully resident, and millions of them as well. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
Individuals with permanent residency, or with partners who hold this status, have expressed that the recent policies suggested by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as discriminatory, frightening and unwelcoming.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a dual British-Jordanian citizen living in the city with his wife and children, said the growing support of the party in the surveys had pushed him to get his UK passport. For the last several years he has gone through the process of obtaining permanent residency – at a huge financial cost – after moving to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the suggested changes be enacted, he worries his family would be split up.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said the man, in his thirties. “Who knows how this plays out in two, three years.”
While in daily life, he has “no issues”, he has been alarmed by the proliferation of St George’s flags in his area, a trend that has been widely co-opted by the extremist groups and immigration opponents. In the future, though the household has no wish to leave, they may consider it if the hostility persists.
“I find it really odd that in a country where migrants are required, no one’s actually selling a beneficial narrative about migration at all,” he remarked. “I just find the demonisation very peculiar and frightening, long-term.”
