Leading British attorneys have issued warnings about a political “downward spiral”, after a Conservative MP considered a future party leader proposed that significant quantities of lawfully resident households must be removed from the country.
Controversial Statement on Legal Status
The MP, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a Tory whip, stated that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their right to stay cancelled, to ensure the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, later distanced herself from Lam’s statement recently.
While Badenoch initially said the statement were “broadly in line” with party policy, she later returned to current rules that only revoke permanent residency status if someone has broken the law. Nevertheless, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a indication of “dangerous times” and belonging to a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In the past few months, leaders across political parties have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed proposals that were once seen as extreme. Most recently, a Reform UK leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly including “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the group’s head, Nigel Farage, pledged to eliminate the primary pathway for migrants to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK risked becoming an “nation of foreigners” without stricter border controls.
“I don’t accept that the implications of that phrase were not fully understood, and it was appealing to a specific group,” said a leading barrister, who has investigated claims of racism within Labour.
The barrister, whose parents migrated from the West Indies, said the remarks were a “thinly disguised keep Britain white campaign”. The leading barrister said the current political discourse was an “absolute indictment” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still feel insecure.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” added Forde. “It’s alarming to see the opposition feeling the sole solution to Reform is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually discuss the benefits of immigration.
“The rhetoric has to change and has to be truthful.”
National Mood and Extremist Movements
Support for Reform has increased in the polls, and extremist demonstrations have attracted large crowds to the capital, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances are reminiscent of extremist rallies from decades past and fearful the UK is “regressing” as elected officials target 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 UK citizens from the Commonwealth residing in the UK lawfully were mistakenly categorized as unauthorized immigrants.
The lawyer said her father, who moved to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the current discourse. Recently, her child has asked whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Now we’re getting kids in their twenties and thirties who have got multiple generations ahead of them, UK-born, feeling less than,” said McKenzie.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for many groups,” she added. “The tenets of this, the reach of it extend widely when you start talking about deporting and removing people who are legally in the country, and millions of them as well. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
People with permanent residency, or with spouses who hold this status, have expressed that the recent policies floated by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as discriminatory, frightening and unwelcoming.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a person with dual nationality living in the city with his family, said the recent surge of Reform in the polls had motivated him to get his British citizenship. For the past six years he has gone through the procedure of obtaining permanent residency – at a huge financial cost – after moving to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the suggested changes be implemented, he worries 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 two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no problems”, Darwazeh has been concerned by the proliferation of national symbols in his area, a trend that has been widely co-opted by the extremist groups and anti-immigration protesters. In the future, though the family has no desire to leave, they may think about it if the unfriendliness continues.
“I find it really odd that in a nation where migrants are required, no one’s actually selling a beneficial narrative about immigration at all,” he remarked. “I just find the demonisation very peculiar and frightening, long-term.”
