Leading UK attorneys have raised alarms about a political “downward spiral”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a potential leadership candidate suggested that significant quantities of lawfully resident households must be removed from the country.
Controversial Statement on Residency Rights
Katie Lam, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a Tory whip, stated that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their right to stay revoked, to ensure the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Conservative leader, the party head, later retreated from these comments last Thursday.
While the leader initially said the remarks were “broadly in line” with party policy, she later returned to existing policy that only withdraw permanent residency status if someone has broken the law. Nevertheless, the statement has sparked concern for many as a indication of “dangerous times” and belonging to a broader political conversation.
Escalating Pattern of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, leaders across various groups have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed policies that were once seen as extreme. Most recently, a political party leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly featuring “black and Asian people”, and in September, the group’s head, the figurehead, pledged to eliminate the main route for immigration to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “nation of foreigners” without stricter border controls.
“It’s hard to believe that the ramifications of that statement were not comprehended, and it was targeting a particular audience,” said a leading barrister, who has examined claims of discrimination within the opposition party.
The barrister, whose parents emigrated from the Caribbean, said Lam’s comments were a “thinly disguised keep Britain white campaign”. The legal expert said the current political discourse was an “absolute indictment” that someone like himself, from generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still experience anxiety.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” added Forde. “It’s alarming to see Labour feeling the only answer to Reform is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually talk about the positives of migration.
“The rhetoric has to change and has to be truthful.”
National Mood and Extremist Movements
Support for Reform has surged in the surveys, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to the capital, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances are similar to extremist rallies from previous eras and fearful the UK is “regressing” as elected officials target migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has acted for hundreds of affected individuals at the centre of the residency controversy, in which Britons from the Commonwealth living in the UK lawfully were mistakenly categorized as illegal migrants.
McKenzie said her father, who emigrated to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the present debate. Recently, her child has asked whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Currently we see kids in their twenties and thirties who have got two generations ahead of them, born in Britain, experiencing insecurity,” said McKenzie.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for most political parties,” she continued. “The tenets of this, the tentacles of it spread so far when you start talking about deporting 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 partners who hold this status, have shared that the recent policies floated by political figures have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as discriminatory, alarming and hostile.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a dual British-Jordanian citizen living in Manchester with his wife and children, said the growing support of Reform in the surveys had pushed him to get his UK passport. For the last several years he has gone through the procedure of securing permanent residency – at a significant expense – after moving to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the proposed policies be enacted, he fears his family would be separated.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said the man, 37. “Who knows how this unfolds in two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no issues”, he 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 anti-immigration protesters. In the future, though the family has no wish to leave, they may think about it if the unfriendliness continues.
“I find it really odd that in a nation where migrants are needed, no one’s actually selling a beneficial narrative about immigration at all,” he remarked. “I consider the vilification very odd and terrifying, for the future.”
