Prominent UK attorneys have issued warnings about a political “downward spiral”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a future party leader proposed that significant quantities of lawfully resident households must be deported.
Divisive Remarks on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a party enforcer, remarked that individuals with legal status 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 retreated from these comments recently.
While the leader initially said the statement were “broadly in line” with party policy, she later reverted to existing policy that only withdraw permanent residency status if someone has committed a crime. Nevertheless, the statement has raised alarms for many as a signal of “perilous periods” and part of a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, politicians across various groups have absorbed anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed proposals that were once seen as extreme. Lately, a political party leader complained about “every advert” seemingly including “black and Asian people”, and in last autumn, the group’s head, 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 implications of that phrase were not fully understood, and it was appealing to a particular audience,” said Martin Forde KC, who has investigated claims of discrimination within the opposition party.
The barrister, whose family migrated from the Caribbean, said the remarks were a “thinly disguised keep Britain white campaign”. The leading barrister said the current political discourse 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,” continued the lawyer. “It’s desperate to see the opposition feeling the only answer to Reform is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually discuss the benefits of immigration.
“The rhetoric has to change and has to be truthful.”
National Mood and Extremist Movements
Support for Reform has surged in the surveys, and extremist demonstrations have drawn thousands to London, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the situation are similar to far-right marches from previous eras and fearful the UK is “regressing” as politicians target migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of victims at the centre of the Windrush scandal, in which UK citizens from the former empire residing in the UK legally were mistakenly categorized as unauthorized immigrants.
The lawyer said her parent, who moved to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the current discourse. Lately, her child has questioned whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Currently we see young people 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-migrant sentiment is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for most political parties,” she continued. “The principles here, the reach of it spread so far when you start talking about removing and expelling people who are lawfully resident, 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 Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and characterized the broader political anti-migrant discourse as discriminatory, frightening and hostile.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a dual British-Jordanian citizen living in Manchester with his family, said the growing support of Reform in the surveys had pushed him to get his UK passport. For the past six years he has gone through the process of obtaining permanent residency – at a significant expense – after moving to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the suggested changes be enacted, he fears his family would be separated.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said Darwazeh, in his thirties. “Who knows how this plays out in the coming years.”
While in daily life, he has “no issues”, he has been alarmed by the increase of national symbols in his neighbourhood, a trend that has been widely adopted by the extremist groups and anti-immigration protesters. Long-term, though the household has no desire to leave, they may consider it if the hostility persists.
“It’s strange that in a country 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 terrifying, for the future.”
