Prominent British attorneys have raised alarms about a political “downward spiral”, after a Tory lawmaker seen as a future party leader proposed that large numbers of lawfully resident households must be removed from the country.
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 permission to remain cancelled, to ensure the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Conservative leader, the party head, later retreated from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While the leader initially said the statement were “generally consistent” with official stance, she later reverted to current rules that only withdraw indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has committed a crime. However, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a signal of “perilous periods” and belonging to a broader political conversation.
Escalating Pattern of Immigration Criticism
In recent months, leaders across political parties have adopted anti-immigration language and echoed proposals that were once seen as extreme. Lately, a political party leader expressed dissatisfaction about “every advert” seemingly featuring “black and Asian people”, and in last autumn, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for migrants to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK risked becoming an “island of strangers” without stricter border controls.
“It’s hard to believe 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 racism within Labour.
Forde, whose family migrated from the West Indies, said Lam’s comments were a “thinly disguised keep Britain white campaign”. The leading barrister said the present political debate was an “absolute indictment” 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 the lawyer. “It’s alarming to see Labour feeling the only answer to the rival party is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually talk about the benefits of immigration.
“The language has to change and has to be truthful.”
Public Sentiment and Extremist Movements
Backing for the party has increased in the surveys, and far-right marches have drawn thousands to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances are reminiscent of extremist rallies from previous eras and concerned the UK is “regressing” as elected officials focus on migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of affected individuals at the heart of the Windrush scandal, in which UK citizens from the former empire living in the UK legally were mistakenly categorized as unauthorized immigrants.
McKenzie said her parent, who emigrated 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 Caribbean passports.
“Now we’re getting kids in their twenties and thirties who have got multiple generations ahead of them, born in Britain, experiencing insecurity,” said McKenzie.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a acceptable political direction for most political parties,” she added. “The principles here, the reach of it spread so far when you start talking about removing and expelling people who are lawfully resident, and vast numbers of them as well. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
Individuals with permanent residency, 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 described the wider political debate as discriminatory, alarming 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 motivated him to get his British citizenship. For the past six years he has gone through the procedure of obtaining ILR – at a significant expense – after moving to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the suggested changes be implemented, he worries his family would be separated.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said Darwazeh, in his thirties. “It’s uncertain how this unfolds 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 extremist groups and anti-immigration protesters. In the future, though the family has no wish to leave, they may consider it if the unfriendliness continues.
“I find it really odd that in a nation where migrants are required, no one’s actually selling a beneficial narrative about immigration at all,” he remarked. “I just find the vilification very peculiar and frightening, for the future.”
