Leading British attorneys have raised alarms about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Conservative MP considered a future party leader suggested that significant quantities of lawfully resident households must be deported.
Divisive Remarks on Residency Rights
The MP, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a party enforcer, remarked that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their permission to remain cancelled, to ensure the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Conservative leader, the party head, later retreated from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While the leader initially said the statement were “broadly in line” with official stance, she later returned to existing policy that only withdraw permanent residency status if someone has broken the law. Nevertheless, the statement has sparked concern for many as a indication of “perilous periods” and belonging to a larger political discourse.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, politicians across various groups have adopted anti-immigration language and echoed policies that were once considered fringe. Most recently, a political party leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly featuring “black and Asian people”, and in September, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for migrants to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK risked becoming an “nation of foreigners” without stricter border controls.
“It’s hard to believe that the ramifications of that phrase were not fully understood, and it was appealing to a particular audience,” said a leading barrister, who has investigated claims of discrimination within Labour.
Forde, whose parents emigrated from the Caribbean, said Lam’s comments were a barely concealed racial purity campaign”. The legal expert said the current political discourse was an “utter condemnation” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still experience anxiety.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” continued Forde. “It’s alarming to see Labour 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 change and has to be accurate.”
Public Sentiment and Far-Right Activity
Backing for the party has surged in the polls, and extremist demonstrations have drawn thousands to the capital, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the circumstances are reminiscent of far-right marches from decades past and concerned the UK is “going backwards” as politicians focus on migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has acted for hundreds of affected individuals at the heart of the Windrush scandal, in which Britons from the former empire living in the UK legally were mistakenly categorized as unauthorized immigrants.
McKenzie said her parent, who moved to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the present debate. Lately, her child has asked whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Currently we see young people 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-migrant sentiment is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for many groups,” she added. “The principles here, the tentacles of it spread so far when you start talking about deporting and expelling people who are legally in the country, and millions 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 shared 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, frightening and unwelcoming.
One individual, 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 UK passport. For the past six years he has gone through the process of obtaining ILR – at a huge financial cost – after moving to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the proposed policies be implemented, he fears his family would be split up.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said the man, 37. “It’s uncertain how this plays out in the coming years.”
While day to day, he has “no problems”, Darwazeh has been alarmed by the increase of St George’s flags in his area, a practice that has been widely co-opted by the far-right and immigration opponents. In the future, though the household has no desire to leave, they may think about it if the unfriendliness continues.
“It’s strange that in a nation where immigrants are needed, no one’s actually selling a positive story about migration at all,” he added. “I just find the vilification very odd and terrifying, long-term.”
