Prominent UK attorneys have raised alarms about a political “downward spiral”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a future party leader proposed that significant quantities of legally settled families must be deported.
Divisive Remarks on Legal Status
The MP, a shadow Home Office minister and a party enforcer, remarked that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their permission to remain cancelled, to guarantee the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, later retreated from Lam’s statement recently.
While Badenoch 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 proposal has sparked concern for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and part of a broader political conversation.
Escalating Pattern of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In the past few months, politicians across political parties have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and repeated proposals that were once seen as extreme. Most recently, a Reform UK leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly including “black and Asian people”, and in last autumn, the party’s leader, Nigel Farage, pledged to eliminate the main route for migrants to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK risked becoming an “island of strangers” without stricter border controls.
“I don’t accept that the ramifications of that statement were not comprehended, and it was appealing to a specific group,” said Martin Forde KC, who has examined claims of discrimination within Labour.
The barrister, whose family migrated from the Caribbean, said Lam’s comments were a barely concealed keep Britain white campaign”. The leading barrister said the present political debate was an “absolute indictment” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had served the country, should still feel insecure.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” added Forde. “It’s desperate to see the opposition feeling the only answer to the rival party is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually discuss the positives of migration.
“The rhetoric has to evolve and has to be accurate.”
Public Sentiment and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has surged in the surveys, and extremist demonstrations have drawn thousands to the capital, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances are similar to far-right marches from decades past and fearful the UK is “going backwards” as elected officials focus on migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of affected individuals at the centre of the Windrush scandal, in which UK citizens from the Commonwealth living in the UK lawfully were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
The lawyer said her father, who emigrated to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the current discourse. Lately, her child has asked whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Currently we see kids in their 20s and 30s who have got multiple generations ahead of them, born in Britain, 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 most political parties,” she added. “The tenets of this, the tentacles of it spread so far when you start talking about deporting and removing people who are legally in the country, and millions of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
Individuals with permanent residency, or with spouses who hold this status, have shared that the new proposals floated by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and characterized the wider political debate as discriminatory, frightening and unwelcoming.
One individual, a dual British-Jordanian citizen living in the city with his family, said the recent surge 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 obtaining ILR – at a huge financial cost – after moving to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the proposed policies be implemented, he fears his family would be split up.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said Darwazeh, 37. “It’s uncertain how this plays out in the coming years.”
While in daily life, he has “no problems”, he has been alarmed by the increase 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 household has no desire to leave, they may think about it if the unfriendliness persists.
“It’s strange that in a country where immigrants are needed, nobody is promoting a beneficial narrative about immigration at all,” he remarked. “I consider the demonisation very odd and frightening, long-term.”
