Leading UK legal professionals have issued warnings about a political “downward spiral”, after a Conservative MP seen as a potential leadership candidate suggested that significant quantities of lawfully resident households must be deported.
Controversial Statement on Legal Status
The MP, 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 predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Conservative leader, the party head, later distanced herself from these comments last Thursday.
While the leader initially said the statement were “broadly in line” with party policy, she later returned to current rules that only revoke indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has committed a crime. However, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a indication of “perilous periods” and belonging to a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In the past few months, leaders across political parties have absorbed anti-immigration language and echoed proposals that were once seen as extreme. Lately, a Reform UK leader complained about “every advert” seemingly including “black and Asian people”, and in last autumn, the group’s head, Nigel Farage, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for migrants to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK risked becoming an “nation of foreigners” without stricter border controls.
“I don’t accept that the implications of that statement were not fully understood, and it was appealing to a particular audience,” said a leading barrister, who has examined claims of racism within the opposition party.
The barrister, whose family migrated from the West Indies, said Lam’s comments were a barely concealed racial purity campaign”. The legal expert said the present political debate 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,” continued Forde. “It’s desperate to see Labour feeling the sole solution to the rival party is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually talk about the benefits of migration.
“The language has to change and has to be accurate.”
National Mood and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has increased in the surveys, and extremist demonstrations have attracted large crowds to the capital, leaving many British people of colour feeling the situation are similar to extremist rallies from previous eras and concerned 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 residency controversy, in which UK citizens from the Commonwealth residing in the UK lawfully were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
McKenzie said her father, who emigrated to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the current discourse. Lately, her child has questioned whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Now we’re getting kids in their 20s and 30s who have got two generations ahead of them, born in Britain, experiencing insecurity,” said McKenzie.
“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 tenets of this, the reach of it extend widely when you start talking about removing and expelling people who are lawfully resident, and vast numbers of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
People with permanent residency, or with spouses who hold this status, have expressed that the recent policies suggested by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as racist, alarming and hostile.
One individual, a dual British-Jordanian citizen residing in Manchester with his family, said the growing support of the party in the polls had motivated him to get his British citizenship. For the last several years he has gone through the procedure of securing ILR – at a huge financial cost – after moving to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the proposed policies be enacted, he worries his family would be split up.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said the man, in his thirties. “It’s uncertain how this plays out in two, three years.”
While in daily life, he has “no problems”, Darwazeh has been concerned by the proliferation of national symbols in his neighbourhood, a trend that has been widely adopted by the extremist groups and immigration opponents. Long-term, though the family has no wish to leave, they may consider it if the hostility persists.
“It’s strange that in a country where migrants are needed, no one’s actually selling a beneficial narrative about immigration at all,” he added. “I just find the demonisation very odd and terrifying, long-term.”
