Leading UK attorneys have raised alarms about a political “downward spiral”, after a Conservative MP seen as a potential leadership candidate suggested that large numbers of legally settled families must be deported.
Divisive Remarks on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a party enforcer, remarked that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their right to stay cancelled, to ensure the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Tory leader, the party head, later distanced herself from these comments recently.
While the leader initially said the statement were “generally consistent” with official stance, she later reverted to existing policy that only revoke permanent residency status if someone has committed a crime. However, the statement has raised alarms for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and part of a larger political discourse.
Escalating Pattern of Immigration Criticism
In the past few months, politicians across various groups have adopted anti-immigration language and repeated proposals that were once considered fringe. Most recently, a Reform UK leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly featuring “ethnic minorities”, and in September, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to eliminate the main route for migrants to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK risked becoming an “nation of foreigners” without tougher immigration policies.
“I don’t accept that the implications of that phrase were not fully understood, and it was targeting a specific group,” said a leading barrister, who has investigated claims of racism within Labour.
Forde, whose family emigrated from the West Indies, said Lam’s comments were a barely concealed keep Britain white campaign”. The legal expert said the current political discourse was an “absolute indictment” that someone like himself, from generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still feel insecure.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” continued Forde. “It’s alarming to see the opposition feeling the sole solution to Reform is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually talk about the positives of immigration.
“The rhetoric has to change and has to be truthful.”
Public Sentiment and Far-Right Activity
Backing for the party has surged in the polls, and extremist demonstrations have attracted large crowds to London, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the circumstances are similar to far-right marches from decades past and concerned the UK is “going backwards” as politicians target migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has represented hundreds of victims at the centre of the Windrush scandal, in which Britons from the former empire residing in the UK lawfully were mistakenly categorized as illegal migrants.
McKenzie said her parent, who moved to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the present debate. Recently, her child has asked whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“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.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for most political parties,” she added. “The tenets of this, the tentacles 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?”
Individual Consequences
Individuals with ILR status, or with spouses who hold this status, have expressed that the new proposals suggested by political figures have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as discriminatory, alarming and hostile.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a dual British-Jordanian citizen residing in the city with his wife and children, said the recent surge of the party in the surveys had motivated him to get his UK passport. For the past six years he has gone through the process of securing ILR – at a huge financial cost – after relocating to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the suggested changes be implemented, he fears his family would be split up.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said Darwazeh, in his thirties. “Who knows how this unfolds in two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no problems”, he has been concerned by the increase of national symbols in his neighbourhood, a trend that has been widely co-opted by the extremist groups and anti-immigration protesters. In the future, though the household has no desire to leave, they may consider it if the hostility persists.
“I find it really odd that in a country where migrants are required, no one’s actually selling a positive story about immigration at all,” he added. “I consider the demonisation very peculiar and terrifying, for the future.”
