Prominent British legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Conservative MP seen as a future party leader suggested that significant quantities of legally settled families must be removed from the country.
Divisive Remarks on Legal Status
The MP, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a party enforcer, remarked that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their right to stay revoked, to ensure the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, later retreated from these comments last Thursday.
While Badenoch initially said the remarks were “broadly in line” with party policy, she later reverted to current rules that only revoke permanent residency status if someone has committed a crime. Nevertheless, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a indication of “perilous periods” and belonging to a larger political discourse.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In the past few months, politicians across various groups have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed proposals that were once considered fringe. Most recently, a political party leader complained about “every advert” seemingly featuring “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the party’s leader, 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 “island of strangers” without stricter border controls.
“It’s hard to believe that the ramifications of that statement were not fully understood, and it was targeting a specific group,” said a leading barrister, who has examined claims of racism within the opposition party.
Forde, whose parents 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 multiple generations of people who had served the country, should still experience anxiety.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” added the lawyer. “It’s alarming to see Labour feeling the sole solution to Reform is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually talk about the benefits of migration.
“The rhetoric has to evolve and has to be truthful.”
National Mood and Extremist Movements
Backing for the party has surged in the polls, and far-right marches have drawn thousands to London, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the circumstances are similar to far-right marches from previous eras and fearful the UK is “regressing” as politicians target migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of affected individuals at the heart of the Windrush scandal, in which Britons from the Commonwealth residing in the UK legally were mistakenly categorized 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 daughter has questioned whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Now we’re getting kids in their twenties and thirties who have got two generations ahead of them, UK-born, experiencing insecurity,” said the attorney.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for many groups,” she continued. “The tenets of this, the tentacles of it extend widely when you start talking about removing and removing people who are lawfully resident, and millions of them as well. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
Individuals with permanent residency, or with partners who hold this status, have shared that the new proposals floated by political figures have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as discriminatory, frightening and hostile.
One individual, a dual British-Jordanian citizen living in Manchester with his wife and children, 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 significant expense – after moving to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the suggested changes be enacted, he fears his family would be split up.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said the man, in his thirties. “It’s uncertain how this unfolds in two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no problems”, he has been concerned by the proliferation of St George’s flags in his area, a trend that has been widely adopted by the extremist groups and immigration opponents. Long-term, though the family has no desire to leave, they may consider it if the hostility persists.
“It’s strange that in a country where migrants are required, nobody is promoting a positive story about immigration at all,” he added. “I consider the vilification very peculiar and terrifying, long-term.”
