Leading British attorneys have raised alarms about a political “downward spiral”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a potential leadership candidate suggested that large numbers of lawfully resident households must be deported.
Controversial Statement on Residency Rights
The MP, 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 predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, later distanced herself from these comments last Thursday.
While Badenoch initially said the statement were “broadly in line” with party policy, she later returned to existing policy that only revoke permanent residency status if someone has broken the law. Nevertheless, the statement has sparked concern for many as a signal of “dangerous times” 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 policies that were once considered fringe. Most recently, a Reform UK leader expressed dissatisfaction about “every advert” seemingly featuring “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the group’s head, the figurehead, pledged to eliminate the main route for migrants to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “island of strangers” without tougher immigration policies.
“I don’t accept that the ramifications of that phrase were not fully understood, and it was appealing to a specific group,” said Martin Forde KC, who has investigated claims of discrimination within the opposition party.
The barrister, whose family emigrated from the Caribbean, said Lam’s comments were a barely concealed racial purity campaign”. The leading barrister said the present political debate was an “absolute indictment” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still feel insecure.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” added Forde. “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 positives of migration.
“The rhetoric has to evolve and has to be truthful.”
Public Sentiment and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has surged in the polls, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to the capital, leaving many British people of colour feeling the situation are similar to far-right marches from previous eras and fearful the UK is “going backwards” as politicians target migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of victims at the centre of the residency controversy, in which UK citizens from the former empire living in the UK legally were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
The lawyer said her father, who moved to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the present debate. Lately, her child has questioned whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Currently we see young people in their 20s and 30s 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 acceptable political direction for many groups,” she continued. “The tenets of this, the tentacles of it spread so far when you start talking about removing and removing people who are legally in the country, and vast numbers of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
Individuals with permanent residency, or with partners who hold this status, have expressed that the recent policies suggested by political figures have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as discriminatory, alarming and unwelcoming.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a dual British-Jordanian citizen living in the city with his family, said the recent surge of the party in the polls had pushed him to get his UK passport. For the last several years he has gone through the procedure of obtaining ILR – at a significant expense – after relocating to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the proposed policies be implemented, he worries his family would be split up.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said the man, in his thirties. “Who knows how this plays out in the coming years.”
While day to day, he has “no problems”, he has been alarmed by the increase of St George’s flags in his neighbourhood, a practice that has been widely adopted by the far-right and immigration opponents. In the future, though the household has no desire to leave, they may consider it if the hostility persists.
“I find it really odd that in a nation where immigrants are required, nobody is promoting a positive story about immigration at all,” he remarked. “I just find the demonisation very peculiar and terrifying, for the future.”
