Leading British legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Tory lawmaker seen as a potential leadership candidate suggested 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 right to stay cancelled, to ensure the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Tory leader, the party head, later retreated from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While Badenoch initially said the statement were “broadly in line” with party policy, she later reverted to current rules that only withdraw permanent residency status if someone has committed a crime. However, the statement has sparked concern for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and part of a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, leaders across various groups have absorbed anti-migrant rhetoric and repeated proposals that were once considered fringe. Most recently, a political party leader expressed dissatisfaction about “every advert” seemingly featuring “black and Asian people”, and in last autumn, the group’s head, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for immigration to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK risked 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 specific group,” said a leading barrister, who has investigated claims of racism within Labour.
The barrister, whose family migrated from the Caribbean, said the remarks were a barely concealed keep Britain white campaign”. The legal expert said the current political discourse was an “utter condemnation” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had served the country, should still feel insecure.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” continued Forde. “It’s desperate to see the opposition feeling the sole solution to the rival party is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually discuss the benefits of immigration.
“The rhetoric has to change and has to be truthful.”
National Mood and Extremist Movements
Backing for the party has increased in the surveys, and extremist demonstrations have attracted large crowds to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances are similar to extremist rallies from decades past and concerned the UK is “going backwards” as politicians focus on migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has represented hundreds of victims at the heart of the Windrush scandal, in which UK citizens from the former empire residing in the UK legally were classed wrongly as unauthorized immigrants.
The lawyer said her father, who moved 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 Caribbean passports.
“Now we’re getting kids in their 20s and 30s who have got multiple generations ahead of them, UK-born, experiencing insecurity,” said the attorney.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a acceptable political direction for most political parties,” she added. “The tenets of this, the reach of it extend widely when you start talking about deporting and expelling people who are legally in the country, and vast numbers of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
People with ILR status, or with spouses who hold this status, have shared that the new proposals floated by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and characterized the broader political anti-migrant discourse as racist, frightening and hostile.
One individual, a person with dual nationality living in the city with his family, said the growing support of the party in the polls had motivated him to get his UK passport. For the last several years he has gone through the process of securing ILR – at a significant expense – after relocating to the UK on a spousal visa. 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 never happen,” said Darwazeh, in his thirties. “Who knows how this plays out in the coming years.”
While in daily life, he has “no problems”, he has been alarmed by the proliferation 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 consider it if the unfriendliness persists.
“I find it really odd that in a country where immigrants are needed, no one’s actually selling a positive story about immigration at all,” he added. “I consider the vilification very odd and frightening, for the future.”
