Leading UK legal professionals have issued warnings about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Conservative MP considered a future party leader suggested that large numbers of legally settled families must be removed from the country.
Controversial Statement on Residency Rights
The MP, a shadow Home Office minister and a party enforcer, stated that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their right to stay revoked, to guarantee 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 “broadly in line” with party policy, she later returned to current rules that only withdraw permanent residency status if someone has broken the law. However, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a signal of “perilous periods” and belonging to a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Immigration Criticism
In recent months, politicians across political parties have absorbed anti-immigration language and repeated proposals that were once seen as extreme. Most recently, a political party leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly including “ethnic minorities”, and in September, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the main route for immigration to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “nation of foreigners” without tougher immigration policies.
“I don’t accept that the implications of that phrase were not comprehended, and it was targeting a specific group,” said Martin Forde KC, who has investigated claims of racism within Labour.
The barrister, whose parents emigrated from the Caribbean, said the remarks were a “thinly disguised racial purity 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,” added Forde. “It’s desperate to see Labour feeling the only answer to the rival party is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually talk about the positives of migration.
“The language has to change and has to be truthful.”
Public Sentiment and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has surged in the polls, and far-right marches have drawn thousands to London, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the circumstances are similar to extremist rallies from decades past and concerned the UK is “going backwards” as politicians target migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of victims at the centre of the residency controversy, in which Britons from the Commonwealth residing in the UK legally were mistakenly categorized as illegal migrants.
The lawyer said her father, who moved to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the current discourse. Lately, her child has asked whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“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 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 reach of it extend widely 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 ILR status, or with partners 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 racist, alarming and hostile.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a dual British-Jordanian citizen living in the city with his family, said the growing support of Reform in the polls had motivated him to get his British citizenship. For the past six years he has gone through the procedure of securing permanent residency – at a huge financial cost – after moving to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the suggested changes be enacted, he fears 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 two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no issues”, he has been alarmed by the increase of national symbols in his area, a trend that has been widely adopted by the extremist groups and anti-immigration protesters. In the future, though the family has no desire to leave, they may consider it if the unfriendliness continues.
“It’s strange that in a nation where immigrants are needed, no one’s actually selling a positive story about immigration at all,” he remarked. “I consider the vilification very odd and terrifying, for the future.”
