Prominent UK legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Conservative MP considered a potential leadership candidate suggested that large numbers of lawfully resident households must be deported.
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 cancelled, to ensure the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, later retreated from these comments last Thursday.
While the leader initially said the statement were “broadly in line” with official stance, she later reverted to existing policy that only revoke permanent residency status if someone has broken the law. Nevertheless, the statement has raised alarms for many as a indication of “dangerous times” and belonging to a larger political discourse.
Escalating Pattern of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, leaders across various groups have absorbed anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed policies that were once considered fringe. Most recently, a political party leader expressed dissatisfaction about “every advert” seemingly including “black and Asian people”, and in September, the group’s head, Nigel Farage, pledged to abolish the main route for immigration to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK risked becoming an “island of strangers” without stricter border controls.
“I don’t accept that the implications of that phrase were not fully understood, and it was appealing to a particular audience,” said a leading barrister, who has investigated claims of discrimination within the opposition party.
Forde, whose parents emigrated from the West Indies, said the remarks were a “thinly disguised racial purity campaign”. The legal expert said the present political debate was an “utter condemnation” that someone like himself, from generations of people who had served the country, should still experience anxiety.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” continued 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 positives of immigration.
“The rhetoric has to change and has to be accurate.”
Public Sentiment and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has surged in the polls, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to London, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the situation are similar to far-right marches from previous eras and fearful the UK is “going backwards” as politicians focus on migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has acted for hundreds of affected individuals at the heart of the Windrush scandal, in which UK citizens from the former empire living in the UK legally were classed wrongly as unauthorized immigrants.
The lawyer said her parent, who emigrated to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the present debate. Recently, her child has asked whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Currently we see young people in their 20s and 30s who have got multiple generations ahead of them, UK-born, experiencing insecurity,” said the attorney.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for many groups,” she added. “The principles here, the tentacles of it extend widely when you start talking about deporting and expelling people who are lawfully resident, and vast numbers 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 new proposals suggested by political figures have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and characterized the wider political debate as discriminatory, frightening and hostile.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a dual British-Jordanian citizen residing in the city with his wife and children, said the growing support of Reform in the polls had motivated 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 relocating to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the proposed policies be implemented, he worries his family would be split up.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said Darwazeh, in his thirties. “It’s uncertain how this plays out in the coming years.”
While day to day, he has “no problems”, he has been alarmed by the proliferation of St George’s flags in his area, a practice that has been widely adopted by the extremist groups and immigration opponents. Long-term, though the family has no desire to leave, they may think about it if the hostility persists.
“It’s strange that in a country where immigrants are required, no one’s actually selling a positive story about immigration at all,” he remarked. “I consider the demonisation very odd and terrifying, long-term.”
