Leading UK attorneys have raised alarms about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a potential leadership candidate suggested that large numbers of legally settled families must be removed from the country.
Divisive Remarks on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister and a Tory whip, remarked that individuals with lawful residence 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 these comments recently.
While Badenoch initially said the statement were “generally consistent” with party policy, she later reverted to existing policy that only withdraw permanent residency status if someone has broken the law. However, the statement has sparked concern 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 echoed policies that were once seen as extreme. Most recently, a political party leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly featuring “black and Asian people”, and in last autumn, the group’s head, Nigel Farage, pledged to eliminate the main route for migrants to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK risked becoming an “nation of foreigners” without tougher immigration policies.
“I don’t accept that the ramifications of that statement were not comprehended, and it was targeting a specific group,” said a leading barrister, who has investigated 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 present political debate was an “utter condemnation” that someone like himself, from multiple 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 talk about the positives of migration.
“The rhetoric has to change and has to be truthful.”
Public Sentiment and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has surged in the surveys, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to the capital, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances are reminiscent of extremist rallies from previous eras and fearful the UK is “going backwards” as elected officials focus on migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has acted for hundreds of affected individuals at the centre of the residency controversy, in which Britons from the former empire residing in the UK legally were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
The lawyer said her parent, who moved to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the present debate. Recently, her child has questioned whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Now we’re getting kids in their twenties and thirties who have got two generations ahead of them, UK-born, feeling less than,” said McKenzie.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for many groups,” she added. “The principles here, the reach of it extend widely when you start talking about removing and expelling people who are legally in the country, and vast numbers of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
People with permanent residency, or with partners 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 described the wider political debate as discriminatory, alarming and hostile.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a dual British-Jordanian citizen residing in Manchester 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 past six years he has gone through the process of obtaining ILR – at a significant expense – after relocating to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the proposed policies be implemented, he worries his family would be separated.
“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 in daily life, he has “no problems”, he has been concerned 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 think about it if the unfriendliness persists.
“It’s strange that in a nation where migrants are required, nobody is promoting a positive story about immigration at all,” he added. “I just find the vilification very peculiar and terrifying, long-term.”
