Prominent British legal professionals have issued warnings about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Conservative MP seen as a potential leadership candidate suggested that significant quantities of legally settled families must be deported.
Controversial Statement on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a Tory whip, remarked that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their right to stay revoked, to guarantee the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Tory leader, the party head, later distanced herself 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 broken the law. Nevertheless, the statement has raised alarms for many as a indication of “dangerous times” and part of a broader political conversation.
Escalating Pattern of Immigration Criticism
In the past few months, politicians across political parties have absorbed anti-immigration language and echoed policies that were once seen as extreme. Lately, a Reform UK leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly including “ethnic minorities”, and in September, the party’s leader, Nigel Farage, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for migrants to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader 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 targeting a specific group,” said Martin Forde KC, who has investigated claims of racism within the opposition party.
Forde, whose parents migrated from the Caribbean, said the remarks were a “thinly disguised 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 served the country, should still experience anxiety.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” added the lawyer. “It’s alarming to see Labour feeling the sole solution to the rival party is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually discuss the benefits of immigration.
“The rhetoric has to change and has to be accurate.”
Public Sentiment and Far-Right Activity
Backing for the party 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 extremist rallies from previous eras and fearful the UK is “going backwards” as politicians target migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has acted for hundreds of victims at the heart of the Windrush scandal, in which Britons from the Commonwealth living in the UK legally were classed wrongly as unauthorized immigrants.
The lawyer said her father, who moved to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the current discourse. Recently, her daughter has asked whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Currently we see kids in their 20s and 30s who have got two generations ahead of them, UK-born, experiencing insecurity,” said the attorney.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a acceptable political direction for most political parties,” she continued. “The tenets of this, the reach of it extend widely when you start talking about deporting and removing people who are legally in the country, 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 expressed that the recent policies floated by political figures have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as discriminatory, frightening and hostile.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a person with dual nationality residing in the city with his wife and children, said the recent surge of the party in the polls had motivated him to get his British citizenship. For the past six years he has gone through the process of obtaining permanent residency – at a significant expense – after relocating to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the proposed policies be enacted, he worries his family would be separated.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said Darwazeh, in his thirties. “It’s uncertain how this plays out in two, three years.”
While in daily life, he has “no problems”, Darwazeh has been concerned by the proliferation of national symbols in his area, a trend that has been widely co-opted by the far-right and immigration opponents. In the future, though the family has no desire to leave, they may consider it if the unfriendliness 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 remarked. “I consider the demonisation very odd and frightening, for the future.”
