Leading UK attorneys have raised alarms about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Conservative MP seen as a potential leadership candidate suggested that large numbers of lawfully resident households must be deported.
Controversial Statement on Residency Rights
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister and a Tory whip, remarked that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their permission to remain cancelled, to guarantee the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Tory leader, the party head, later distanced herself from these comments last Thursday.
While the leader initially said the statement were “generally consistent” with party policy, she later returned to current rules that only revoke indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has broken the law. Nevertheless, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a indication of “dangerous times” and part of a larger political discourse.
Escalating Pattern of Immigration Criticism
In the past few months, leaders across various groups have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed proposals that were once considered fringe. Lately, a Reform UK leader expressed dissatisfaction about “numerous advertisements” seemingly including “black and Asian people”, and in September, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the main route for immigration 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.
“I don’t accept 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 discrimination within Labour.
Forde, whose family emigrated from the Caribbean, said Lam’s comments were a barely concealed racial purity 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.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” continued the lawyer. “It’s alarming to see the opposition feeling the sole solution to Reform is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually discuss the benefits of migration.
“The rhetoric has to evolve and has to be truthful.”
National Mood and Far-Right Activity
Backing for the party has surged in the surveys, and extremist demonstrations have attracted large crowds to London, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the situation are reminiscent of extremist rallies from previous eras and concerned the UK is “regressing” as elected officials focus on migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of victims at the centre of the Windrush scandal, in which Britons from the Commonwealth living in the UK lawfully were mistakenly categorized as unauthorized immigrants.
The lawyer said her parent, who moved to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the current discourse. Recently, her child has asked whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Now we’re getting young people in their twenties and thirties who have got multiple generations ahead of them, born in Britain, feeling less than,” said McKenzie.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for most political parties,” she added. “The principles here, the reach of it extend widely when you start talking about deporting and removing people who are legally in the country, and millions of them as well. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
Individuals with permanent residency, or with partners who hold this status, have expressed that the recent policies floated by political figures have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and characterized the wider political debate as racist, alarming and unwelcoming.
One individual, a person with dual nationality residing 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 past six 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 proposed policies be enacted, he worries 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 issues”, Darwazeh has been alarmed by the increase of St George’s flags in his neighbourhood, a trend that has been widely co-opted by the far-right and anti-immigration protesters. In the future, though the household has no wish to leave, they may consider it if the unfriendliness continues.
“It’s strange that in a country where migrants are required, nobody is promoting a positive story about migration at all,” he remarked. “I consider the demonisation very peculiar and frightening, long-term.”
