Prominent UK legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Conservative MP considered a future party leader proposed that significant quantities of lawfully resident households must be removed from the country.
Divisive Remarks on Residency Rights
Katie Lam, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a party enforcer, remarked that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their permission to remain revoked, to ensure the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Conservative leader, the party head, later distanced herself from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While the leader initially said the remarks were “generally consistent” with party policy, she later reverted to existing policy that only revoke indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has committed a crime. Nevertheless, the statement has sparked concern for many as a signal of “perilous periods” and belonging to a larger political discourse.
Escalating Pattern of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In the past few months, politicians across political parties have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and repeated policies that were once seen as extreme. Most recently, a Reform UK leader expressed dissatisfaction about “every advert” seemingly featuring “black and Asian people”, and in last autumn, the group’s head, Nigel Farage, pledged to eliminate the primary pathway for migrants to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK risked becoming an “nation of foreigners” without tougher immigration policies.
“It’s hard to believe that the ramifications of that statement were not comprehended, and it was appealing to a particular audience,” said Martin Forde KC, who has investigated claims of discrimination within Labour.
Forde, whose parents migrated from the West Indies, said Lam’s comments 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 contributed to the country, should still experience anxiety.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” continued the lawyer. “It’s desperate to see the opposition feeling the sole solution to Reform is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually discuss the positives of migration.
“The language has to change 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 London, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the situation are reminiscent of far-right marches from decades past and concerned the UK is “regressing” as elected officials target migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of affected individuals at the heart of the residency controversy, in which Britons from the Commonwealth living in the UK lawfully were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
McKenzie said her father, who moved to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the present debate. Recently, her child has asked whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Now we’re getting young people in their twenties and thirties who have got two generations ahead of them, born in Britain, experiencing insecurity,” said McKenzie.
“These are extremely hazardous 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 spread so far when you start talking about removing and expelling people who are lawfully resident, and millions of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
Individuals with ILR status, or with spouses who hold this status, have shared that the new proposals floated by political figures have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and characterized the wider political debate as discriminatory, alarming and unwelcoming.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a person with dual nationality 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 past six years he has gone through the procedure of securing permanent residency – at a huge financial cost – after relocating to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the suggested changes 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 unfolds in the coming years.”
While in daily life, 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 far-right and immigration opponents. Long-term, though the household has no wish to leave, they may think about it if the hostility continues.
“I find it really odd that in a nation where migrants are needed, nobody is promoting a beneficial narrative about immigration at all,” he added. “I just find the vilification very peculiar and frightening, long-term.”
