Prominent British legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “downward spiral”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a future party leader suggested that significant quantities of legally settled families must be removed from the country.
Controversial Statement on Legal Status
The MP, a shadow Home Office minister and a Tory whip, stated that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their permission to remain cancelled, to ensure the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, later retreated from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While the leader initially said the remarks were “generally consistent” with official stance, she later returned to current rules that only withdraw permanent residency status if someone has broken the law. Nevertheless, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and belonging to a larger political discourse.
Growing Trend of Immigration Criticism
In recent months, leaders across various groups have absorbed anti-migrant rhetoric and repeated proposals that were once considered fringe. Most recently, a Reform UK leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly featuring “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the group’s head, Nigel Farage, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for migrants to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “nation of foreigners” without stricter border controls.
“It’s hard to believe that the implications of that statement were not comprehended, and it was appealing to a particular audience,” said a leading barrister, who has investigated claims of racism within the opposition party.
Forde, whose family emigrated from the West Indies, said Lam’s comments were a “thinly disguised racial purity campaign”. The leading barrister said the current political discourse was an “absolute indictment” that someone like himself, from generations of people who had served the country, should still experience anxiety.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” added Forde. “It’s alarming to see the opposition feeling the sole solution to the rival party is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually talk about the positives of immigration.
“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 far-right marches have drawn thousands to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the situation are similar to far-right marches from decades past and fearful the UK is “regressing” as elected officials focus on migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has acted for hundreds of victims at the heart of the residency controversy, 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 the Caribbean in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the present debate. Lately, her child has questioned whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“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.
“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 legally in the country, and millions of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
Individuals with ILR status, 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 wider political debate as discriminatory, frightening and unwelcoming.
One individual, a person with dual nationality residing in Manchester with his family, said the growing support of Reform in the surveys had pushed him to get his British citizenship. For the past six years he has gone through the process of obtaining permanent residency – at a huge financial cost – after relocating to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the suggested changes be implemented, he worries his family would be split up.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said the man, 37. “Who knows how this plays out in the coming years.”
While in daily life, he has “no problems”, Darwazeh has been alarmed by the increase of St George’s flags in his area, a practice that has been widely adopted by the far-right and immigration opponents. Long-term, though the family has no desire to leave, they may think about it if the hostility continues.
“It’s strange that in a nation where migrants are needed, nobody is promoting a positive story about immigration at all,” he remarked. “I just find the vilification very odd and frightening, for the future.”
