Leading British legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “downward spiral”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a potential leadership candidate suggested that large numbers of legally settled families must be removed from the country.
Controversial Statement on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister and a Tory whip, stated that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their permission to remain revoked, to ensure the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, later retreated from these comments recently.
While Badenoch initially said the statement were “broadly in line” with party policy, she later reverted to existing policy that only revoke indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has broken the law. Nevertheless, the proposal has sparked concern for many as a indication of “perilous periods” and belonging to a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Immigration Criticism
In the past few months, leaders across various groups have absorbed anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed proposals that were once considered fringe. Most recently, a Reform UK leader complained about “every advert” seemingly including “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the group’s head, the figurehead, pledged to eliminate the main route for migrants to obtain 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 comprehended, and it was targeting a particular audience,” said Martin Forde KC, who has examined claims of discrimination within the opposition party.
The barrister, whose parents migrated from the Caribbean, said Lam’s comments were a barely concealed racial purity campaign”. The leading barrister said the present political debate was an “absolute indictment” that someone like himself, from generations of people who had served the country, should still feel insecure.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” continued the lawyer. “It’s desperate to see Labour feeling the only answer to the rival party is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually discuss the benefits of migration.
“The rhetoric has to evolve and has to be truthful.”
National Mood and Far-Right Activity
Backing for the party has increased in the surveys, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to the capital, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances are similar to far-right marches from previous eras and fearful the UK is “regressing” as elected officials target migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of affected individuals at the centre of the Windrush scandal, in which Britons from the Commonwealth residing in the UK lawfully were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
The lawyer said her parent, who moved to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the present debate. Lately, her daughter has questioned whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Now we’re getting young people in their twenties and thirties who have got two generations ahead of them, UK-born, feeling less than,” 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 spread so far when you start talking about deporting and removing people who are lawfully resident, and millions of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
Individuals with permanent residency, or with spouses who hold this status, have expressed that the recent policies floated by political figures have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and described the wider political debate as discriminatory, alarming and unwelcoming.
One individual, a person with dual nationality living in Manchester with his family, said the growing support of Reform in the polls had motivated him to get his UK passport. For the last several years he has gone through the procedure of securing ILR – at a huge financial cost – after moving to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the suggested changes be enacted, he fears his family would be split up.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said the man, in his thirties. “Who knows how this unfolds in the coming years.”
While in daily life, he has “no problems”, he has been concerned by the proliferation of St George’s flags in his neighbourhood, a trend that has been widely adopted by the extremist groups and immigration opponents. Long-term, though the household has no desire to leave, they may think about it if the unfriendliness continues.
“It’s strange that in a country where immigrants are required, no one’s actually selling a positive story about migration at all,” he added. “I just find the vilification very peculiar and frightening, for the future.”
