Prominent UK legal professionals have issued warnings about a political “downward spiral”, after a Tory lawmaker seen as a potential leadership candidate proposed that large numbers of legally settled families must be removed from the country.
Divisive Remarks on Residency Rights
The MP, a shadow Home Office minister and a Tory whip, stated that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their permission to remain cancelled, to guarantee the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Tory 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 current rules that only withdraw indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has broken the law. However, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and part of a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Immigration Criticism
In recent months, politicians across political parties have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and repeated proposals that were once considered fringe. Lately, a political party leader expressed dissatisfaction about “numerous advertisements” seemingly featuring “ethnic minorities”, and in September, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for migrants to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “nation of foreigners” without tougher immigration policies.
“It’s hard to believe 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 Labour.
Forde, whose family emigrated from the West Indies, said Lam’s comments were a “thinly disguised racial purity campaign”. The leading barrister said the current political discourse was an “utter condemnation” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had served the country, should still feel insecure.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” added the lawyer. “It’s alarming to see the opposition feeling the only answer to Reform is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually talk about the benefits of migration.
“The language has to evolve and has to be accurate.”
National Mood and Far-Right Activity
Backing for the party has increased in the surveys, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances are reminiscent of far-right marches from previous eras and concerned the UK is “going backwards” as politicians target migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has acted for hundreds of affected individuals at the centre of the residency controversy, in which UK citizens from the Commonwealth residing in the UK legally were classed wrongly as unauthorized immigrants.
McKenzie said her father, who moved to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the current discourse. Recently, her child has asked 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, feeling less than,” said McKenzie.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a acceptable political direction for many groups,” she added. “The tenets of this, the reach of it spread so far when you start talking about deporting and removing people who are legally in the country, and vast numbers of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
People with ILR status, or with spouses who hold this status, have expressed that the recent policies floated by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and described the wider political debate as discriminatory, alarming and hostile.
One individual, a dual British-Jordanian citizen living in the city with his family, said the recent surge of Reform in the polls had motivated him to get his UK passport. For the past six years he has gone through the process of obtaining ILR – at a significant expense – after moving to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the suggested changes be implemented, he fears his family would be separated.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said Darwazeh, in his thirties. “Who knows how this unfolds in the coming years.”
While in daily life, he has “no issues”, Darwazeh has been concerned by the increase of national symbols in his neighbourhood, a practice that has been widely co-opted by the extremist groups and anti-immigration protesters. Long-term, though the family has no wish to leave, they may think about it if the unfriendliness persists.
“I find it really odd that in a country where migrants are needed, nobody is promoting a positive story about immigration at all,” he remarked. “I just find the vilification very peculiar and terrifying, long-term.”
