Leading UK attorneys have issued warnings 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 removed from the country.
Controversial Statement on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister and a party enforcer, stated that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their right to stay cancelled, to ensure the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Conservative leader, the party head, later retreated from these comments recently.
While the leader initially said the statement were “broadly in line” with party policy, she later returned to existing policy that only revoke permanent residency status if someone has committed a crime. However, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a indication of “dangerous times” and belonging to a larger political discourse.
Growing Trend of Immigration Criticism
In the past few months, leaders across various groups have absorbed anti-immigration language and echoed policies that were once seen as extreme. Most recently, a political party leader expressed dissatisfaction about “numerous advertisements” seemingly featuring “black and Asian people”, and in September, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to eliminate the primary pathway for migrants to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer 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 appealing to a particular audience,” said a leading barrister, who has examined claims of racism within the opposition party.
Forde, whose family migrated from the West Indies, said Lam’s comments were a “thinly disguised keep Britain white campaign”. The legal expert said the current political discourse was an “utter condemnation” that someone like himself, from generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still experience anxiety.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” added the lawyer. “It’s desperate to see Labour feeling the sole solution to the rival party is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually talk about the positives of immigration.
“The language has to change and has to be truthful.”
Public Sentiment and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has increased in the polls, and extremist demonstrations have attracted large crowds to London, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the situation are similar to far-right marches from decades past and concerned the UK is “regressing” as politicians focus on migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous 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 lawfully were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
The lawyer said her father, who emigrated to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the present debate. Lately, her child has questioned whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Now we’re getting kids in their twenties and thirties who have got two generations ahead of them, UK-born, feeling less than,” said the attorney.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-migrant sentiment 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 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 uncertain in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as discriminatory, frightening and unwelcoming.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a dual British-Jordanian citizen residing in Manchester with his family, said the recent surge of Reform in the surveys had motivated him to get his UK passport. For the past six years he has gone through the procedure of obtaining ILR – at a huge financial cost – after moving to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the suggested changes be implemented, he fears his family would be split up.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said the man, 37. “Who knows how this plays out in two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no issues”, he has been concerned by the proliferation of national symbols in his area, a practice that has been widely co-opted by the extremist groups and immigration opponents. Long-term, though the household has no desire to leave, they may think about it if the hostility continues.
“It’s strange that in a nation where migrants are needed, nobody is promoting a beneficial narrative about immigration at all,” he remarked. “I just find the demonisation very odd and frightening, for the future.”
