Leading British attorneys have raised alarms about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a future party leader suggested that significant quantities of lawfully resident households must be deported.
Controversial Statement on Residency Rights
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 revoked, to ensure the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Tory leader, the party head, later retreated from Lam’s statement recently.
While the leader initially said the statement were “generally consistent” with party policy, she later reverted to existing policy that only withdraw 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 belonging to a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, politicians across political parties have absorbed anti-immigration language and echoed proposals that were once considered fringe. Most recently, a Reform UK leader complained about “every advert” seemingly featuring “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the party’s leader, Nigel Farage, pledged to abolish the main route for migrants to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK risked becoming an “island of strangers” without stricter border controls.
“I don’t accept that the ramifications of that phrase were not comprehended, and it was targeting a specific group,” said Martin Forde KC, who has examined claims of racism within the opposition party.
Forde, 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 feel insecure.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” continued Forde. “It’s desperate to see the opposition feeling the sole solution to Reform is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually talk about the positives of migration.
“The rhetoric has to evolve and has to be truthful.”
Public Sentiment and Extremist Movements
Support for Reform has surged in the polls, and far-right marches 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 target migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of affected individuals at the centre of the residency controversy, in which UK citizens from the former empire residing in the UK legally were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
McKenzie said her father, who emigrated to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the current discourse. Recently, her child has questioned whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Now we’re getting kids in their 20s and 30s who have got multiple 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 acceptable political direction for many groups,” she continued. “The principles here, the tentacles of it extend widely when you start talking about deporting and expelling 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 ILR status, or with spouses who hold this status, have expressed that the new proposals suggested by political figures have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and described the wider political debate as racist, frightening and hostile.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a dual British-Jordanian citizen living in Manchester with his family, said the recent surge of Reform in the polls had pushed him to get his British citizenship. For the past six years he has gone through the procedure of securing ILR – at a significant expense – after relocating to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the suggested changes be enacted, he worries his family would be separated.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said Darwazeh, in his thirties. “It’s uncertain how this plays out in two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no issues”, Darwazeh has been alarmed by the proliferation of St George’s flags 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 desire to leave, they may think about it if the hostility persists.
“It’s strange that in a nation where migrants are needed, no one’s actually selling a beneficial narrative about immigration at all,” he added. “I just find the demonisation very peculiar and frightening, for the future.”
