Prominent UK legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a future party leader proposed that large numbers of lawfully resident households must be removed from the country.
Divisive Remarks on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a party enforcer, remarked that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their permission to remain cancelled, to ensure the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Conservative leader, the party head, later retreated from these comments last Thursday.
While the leader initially said the statement were “generally consistent” with party policy, she later returned to existing policy that only revoke indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has committed a crime. Nevertheless, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a indication of “perilous periods” and part of 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 seen as extreme. Lately, a political party leader expressed dissatisfaction about “numerous advertisements” seemingly including “black and Asian people”, and in last autumn, the group’s head, Nigel Farage, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for immigration to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK risked becoming an “island of strangers” without tougher immigration policies.
“I don’t accept that the implications of that phrase were not comprehended, and it was appealing to a particular audience,” said a leading barrister, who has examined claims of racism within Labour.
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 multiple generations of people who had served the country, should still feel insecure.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” added the lawyer. “It’s alarming to see the opposition feeling the sole solution to Reform is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually talk about the positives of immigration.
“The language has to evolve and has to be truthful.”
Public Sentiment and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has increased in the polls, and far-right marches have drawn thousands to London, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the situation are similar to extremist rallies from decades past and fearful the UK is “going backwards” as politicians focus on migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has acted for hundreds of victims at the centre of the Windrush scandal, in which UK citizens from the Commonwealth residing in the UK legally were mistakenly categorized as unauthorized immigrants.
The lawyer said her father, who moved to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the present debate. Recently, her daughter has questioned whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Currently we see young people in their twenties and thirties who have got multiple generations ahead of them, UK-born, experiencing insecurity,” said the attorney.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for most political parties,” she added. “The tenets of this, the tentacles of it extend widely 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 shared that the recent policies floated by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and characterized the broader political anti-migrant discourse as discriminatory, frightening and hostile.
One individual, a dual British-Jordanian citizen living in the city with his wife and children, said the recent surge of the party in the surveys had motivated him to get his British citizenship. For the last several years he has gone through the process of securing permanent residency – at a significant expense – after moving to the UK on a spousal visa. 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 the man, 37. “Who knows how this plays out in the coming years.”
While day to day, he has “no problems”, he has been concerned by the increase of national symbols in his neighbourhood, a practice that has been widely adopted 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 hostility continues.
“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 demonisation very odd and frightening, long-term.”
