Leading UK attorneys have raised alarms about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Tory lawmaker seen as a future party leader suggested that significant quantities of legally settled families must be deported.
Controversial Statement on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister and a party enforcer, stated that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their right to stay cancelled, 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 “generally consistent” with official stance, she later reverted to existing policy that only withdraw indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has broken the law. However, the statement has raised alarms for many as a signal of “perilous periods” and belonging to a broader political conversation.
Escalating Pattern of Immigration Criticism
In the past few months, leaders across various groups have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and repeated proposals that were once considered fringe. Most recently, a political party leader complained about “every advert” seemingly including “ethnic minorities”, and in September, the party’s leader, Nigel Farage, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for migrants to gain 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 implications of that statement were not comprehended, and it was targeting a specific group,” said Martin Forde KC, who has examined claims of racism within the opposition party.
The barrister, whose family migrated from the West Indies, said the remarks were a barely concealed keep Britain white campaign”. The legal expert said the present political debate was an “absolute indictment” that someone like himself, from generations of people who had contributed to 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 benefits of immigration.
“The language has to change 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 British people of colour feeling the situation are similar to extremist rallies from previous eras and fearful the UK is “regressing” as politicians focus on migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has acted for hundreds of affected individuals at the centre of the residency controversy, 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 the Caribbean in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the current discourse. Lately, her child has questioned whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Currently we see young people in their twenties and thirties who have got multiple generations ahead of them, UK-born, feeling less than,” said the attorney.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for many groups,” she continued. “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. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
People with ILR status, or with partners 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 characterized the wider political debate as discriminatory, alarming and hostile.
One individual, a person with dual nationality residing in Manchester with his wife and children, said the recent surge of Reform in the polls had pushed him to get his UK passport. For the last several years he has gone through the procedure of obtaining ILR – at a significant expense – after moving to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the proposed policies be implemented, he fears his family would be separated.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said Darwazeh, in his thirties. “It’s uncertain how this unfolds in the coming years.”
While day to day, he has “no issues”, he has been alarmed 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. In the future, though the household has no desire to leave, they may consider it if the unfriendliness continues.
“I find it really odd that in a nation where immigrants are needed, no one’s actually selling a positive story about migration at all,” he added. “I consider the demonisation very odd and frightening, long-term.”
