Prominent British attorneys have issued warnings about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Conservative MP seen as a potential leadership candidate suggested that large numbers of lawfully resident households must be removed from the country.
Divisive Remarks on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister and a party enforcer, remarked that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their right to stay revoked, to guarantee the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Tory leader, the party head, later retreated from these comments last Thursday.
While the leader initially said the statement were “broadly in line” with party policy, 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 raised alarms for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and belonging to a broader political conversation.
Escalating Pattern of Immigration Criticism
In recent months, leaders across various groups have absorbed anti-migrant rhetoric and repeated policies that were once considered fringe. Most recently, a political party leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly including “black and Asian people”, and in last autumn, the group’s head, Nigel Farage, pledged to eliminate the primary pathway for immigration to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK risked becoming an “nation of foreigners” without tougher immigration policies.
“I don’t accept that the implications of that phrase were not comprehended, and it was appealing to a particular audience,” said a leading barrister, who has investigated claims of discrimination within Labour.
The barrister, whose family migrated from the Caribbean, said Lam’s comments were a “thinly disguised 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 served the country, should still experience anxiety.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” added Forde. “It’s alarming to see Labour feeling the sole solution to Reform is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually talk about the benefits of immigration.
“The language has to evolve and has to be truthful.”
Public Sentiment and Extremist Movements
Support for Reform has surged in the surveys, and extremist demonstrations have attracted large crowds 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.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of victims at the centre of the residency controversy, in which Britons from the Commonwealth residing in the UK lawfully were mistakenly categorized as unauthorized immigrants.
The lawyer said her parent, who moved to the UK from Jamaica 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 young people in their 20s and 30s who have got two generations ahead of them, born in Britain, feeling less than,” said the attorney.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a acceptable political direction for many groups,” she added. “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. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
People with permanent residency, or with partners who hold this status, have expressed that the new proposals suggested by political figures have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as discriminatory, alarming and hostile.
One individual, a person with dual nationality living in Manchester with his wife and children, said the growing support of Reform in the surveys had motivated him to get his UK passport. For the last several years he has gone through the process of securing permanent residency – at a huge financial cost – after moving to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the proposed policies be enacted, he fears his family would be split up.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said Darwazeh, 37. “Who knows how this plays out in two, three years.”
While in daily life, he has “no issues”, he has been alarmed by the increase of St George’s flags in his neighbourhood, a trend that has been widely adopted by the far-right and immigration opponents. Long-term, 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 needed, no one’s actually selling a positive story about immigration at all,” he remarked. “I just find the vilification very peculiar and frightening, for the future.”
