Prominent UK legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Tory lawmaker seen as a future party leader suggested that large numbers of legally settled families must be removed from the country.
Divisive Remarks on Residency Rights
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister and a party enforcer, remarked that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their permission to remain cancelled, to guarantee 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 “generally consistent” with official stance, she later reverted to existing policy that only revoke permanent residency status if someone has committed a crime. Nevertheless, the statement has raised alarms for many as a indication of “dangerous times” and belonging to a larger political discourse.
Growing Trend of Immigration Criticism
In recent months, leaders across various groups have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and repeated proposals that were once considered fringe. Most recently, a political party leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly featuring “black and Asian people”, and in September, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to eliminate the main route for migrants 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 ramifications of that statement were not fully understood, and it was targeting a particular audience,” said a leading barrister, who has examined claims of discrimination within Labour.
The barrister, whose family migrated from the Caribbean, said the remarks were a barely concealed 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 contributed to the country, should still feel insecure.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” added the lawyer. “It’s desperate to see the opposition feeling the only answer to the rival party is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually discuss the benefits of migration.
“The rhetoric has to change and has to be accurate.”
National Mood and Far-Right Activity
Backing for the party has increased in the polls, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the situation are reminiscent of far-right marches from previous eras and fearful the UK is “going backwards” as politicians focus on migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of affected individuals at the heart of the Windrush scandal, in which UK citizens from the Commonwealth living in the UK lawfully were mistakenly categorized as illegal migrants.
McKenzie said her parent, who emigrated to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the present debate. Recently, her child has questioned whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Currently we see young people in their twenties and thirties who have got two generations ahead of them, UK-born, 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 principles here, the tentacles of it spread so far when you start talking about deporting and removing people who are legally in the country, and millions of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
Individuals with permanent residency, or with spouses who hold this status, have shared that the new proposals floated by political figures have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and characterized the wider political debate as discriminatory, frightening and unwelcoming.
One individual, a person with dual nationality living in the city with his wife and children, said the growing support of Reform in the polls had pushed him to get his UK passport. For the last several years he has gone through the process of obtaining permanent residency – at a significant expense – after moving to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the suggested changes be enacted, he worries his family would be split up.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said the man, 37. “It’s uncertain how this unfolds in the coming years.”
While day to day, he has “no problems”, Darwazeh has been alarmed by the increase of St George’s flags in his area, a practice that has been widely co-opted by the extremist groups and anti-immigration protesters. Long-term, though the family has no desire to leave, they may think about it if the unfriendliness continues.
“It’s strange that in a country where migrants are required, no one’s actually selling a positive story about migration at all,” he remarked. “I just find the vilification very odd and terrifying, long-term.”
