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
The MP, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a Tory whip, remarked that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their permission to remain revoked, to guarantee the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Conservative leader, the party head, later retreated from Lam’s statement recently.
While the leader initially said the statement were “generally consistent” with party policy, she later returned to current rules that only withdraw permanent residency status if someone has broken the law. Nevertheless, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and belonging to a larger political discourse.
Growing Trend of Immigration Criticism
In recent months, leaders across political parties have adopted anti-immigration language and echoed policies that were once seen as extreme. Lately, a Reform UK leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly featuring “black and Asian people”, and in September, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for immigration to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK risked becoming an “island of strangers” without tougher immigration policies.
“I don’t accept that the implications of that phrase were not fully understood, and it was appealing to a particular audience,” said Martin Forde KC, who has investigated claims of racism within the opposition party.
Forde, whose family migrated from the Caribbean, said Lam’s comments 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 served the country, should still experience anxiety.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” continued the lawyer. “It’s alarming to see the opposition feeling the only answer to the rival party is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually discuss the benefits of immigration.
“The rhetoric has to evolve and has to be truthful.”
National Mood and Extremist Movements
Backing for the party has increased in the surveys, and extremist demonstrations have attracted large crowds to the capital, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the circumstances are reminiscent of extremist rallies from previous eras and fearful the UK is “going backwards” as elected officials target migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has represented hundreds of victims at the heart of the residency controversy, in which Britons from the Commonwealth living in the UK lawfully were mistakenly categorized as unauthorized immigrants.
The lawyer said her parent, who emigrated to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the current discourse. Recently, her daughter has questioned whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Now we’re getting kids in their 20s and 30s who have got multiple generations ahead of them, born in Britain, feeling less than,” said the attorney.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for most political parties,” she continued. “The principles here, the tentacles of it extend widely when you start talking about deporting and expelling people who are lawfully resident, and millions of them as well. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
People with permanent residency, or with partners who hold this status, have expressed that the recent policies suggested by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as racist, frightening and hostile.
One individual, a dual British-Jordanian citizen residing in Manchester with his wife and children, said the recent surge of Reform in the polls had pushed him to get his UK passport. For the last several years he has gone through the process of obtaining ILR – at a huge financial cost – after moving to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the proposed policies be implemented, he worries his family would be separated.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said Darwazeh, 37. “It’s uncertain how this plays out in the coming years.”
While day to day, he has “no issues”, he has been alarmed by the proliferation of national symbols in his area, a trend that has been widely co-opted by the extremist groups and anti-immigration protesters. In the future, though the household has no wish to leave, they may consider it if the hostility persists.
“It’s strange that in a nation where immigrants are required, nobody is promoting a beneficial narrative about immigration at all,” he added. “I just find the vilification very peculiar and frightening, long-term.”
