Leading UK attorneys have issued warnings about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a future party leader proposed that large numbers of legally settled families must be removed from the country.
Controversial Statement on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister and a party enforcer, stated that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their right to stay cancelled, to ensure the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, later retreated from Lam’s statement recently.
While Badenoch initially said the remarks were “broadly in line” with party policy, she later reverted to current rules that only revoke indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has committed a crime. Nevertheless, the statement has sparked concern for many as a signal of “perilous periods” and part of a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In the past few months, politicians across various groups have absorbed anti-migrant rhetoric and repeated policies that were once seen as extreme. Most recently, a political party leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly including “black and Asian people”, and in last autumn, the party’s leader, Nigel Farage, 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 tougher immigration policies.
“It’s hard to believe that the ramifications of that phrase were not fully understood, and it was targeting a specific group,” said Martin Forde KC, who has examined claims of discrimination within the opposition party.
The barrister, whose family emigrated from the Caribbean, said the remarks were a “thinly disguised racial purity campaign”. The legal expert said the present political debate was an “utter condemnation” 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 desperate 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.”
Public Sentiment and Extremist Movements
Support for Reform has increased in the surveys, and extremist demonstrations have attracted large crowds to the capital, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the circumstances are reminiscent of extremist rallies from decades past and concerned the UK is “regressing” as politicians focus on migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has represented hundreds of affected individuals at the centre of the Windrush scandal, in which Britons from the former empire residing in the UK legally were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
The lawyer said her father, who moved to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the current discourse. Recently, her child has questioned whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Currently we see young people in their 20s and 30s who have got two generations ahead of them, born in Britain, feeling less than,” said the attorney.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a acceptable political direction for most political parties,” she continued. “The tenets of this, the reach of it spread so far when you start talking about removing and removing people who are lawfully resident, and vast numbers of them as well. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
People 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 insecure in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as discriminatory, alarming and hostile.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a person with dual nationality residing in Manchester with his wife and children, said the recent surge of Reform in the polls had motivated him to get his UK passport. 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 marriage permit. Should the suggested changes be implemented, he fears his family would be separated.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said Darwazeh, 37. “It’s uncertain how this plays out in two, three 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 adopted by the extremist groups and immigration opponents. In the future, 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 beneficial narrative about immigration at all,” he remarked. “I consider the vilification very peculiar and terrifying, for the future.”
