Prominent British legal professionals have issued warnings about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Conservative MP considered a potential leadership candidate proposed that large numbers of legally settled families must be removed from the country.
Divisive Remarks on Residency Rights
The MP, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a party enforcer, stated that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their permission to remain cancelled, to ensure the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Tory leader, the party head, later distanced herself from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While Badenoch initially said the remarks were “generally consistent” 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 “perilous periods” and part of a broader political conversation.
Escalating Pattern of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In the past few months, politicians across political parties have adopted anti-immigration language and repeated policies that were once considered fringe. Most recently, a Reform UK leader expressed dissatisfaction about “every advert” seemingly featuring “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the group’s head, Nigel Farage, pledged to eliminate the main route for migrants to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK risked becoming an “island of strangers” without stricter border controls.
“It’s hard to believe that the implications of that statement were not fully understood, and it was appealing to a specific group,” said a leading barrister, who has examined claims of discrimination within Labour.
The barrister, whose parents emigrated from the West Indies, said Lam’s comments were a barely concealed 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.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” added the lawyer. “It’s desperate to see Labour feeling the sole solution to the rival party is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually discuss the benefits of migration.
“The language has to change and has to be accurate.”
Public Sentiment and Extremist Movements
Support for Reform has increased in the polls, and extremist demonstrations have drawn thousands to London, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the situation are reminiscent of far-right marches from previous eras and concerned the UK is “going backwards” as politicians focus on migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of affected individuals at the centre of the residency controversy, in which Britons from the Commonwealth living in the UK legally were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
McKenzie said her father, who moved to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the current discourse. Recently, her daughter has questioned whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Now we’re getting kids in their twenties and thirties who have got two 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 spread so far 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?”
Individual Consequences
Individuals with ILR status, or with spouses who hold this status, have shared that the recent policies suggested by political figures have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as discriminatory, alarming and unwelcoming.
One individual, 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 pushed him to get his British citizenship. For the last several years he has gone through the procedure of obtaining ILR – at a significant expense – after relocating to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the proposed policies be implemented, he fears his family would be split up.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said the man, 37. “It’s uncertain how this plays out in two, three years.”
While in daily life, he has “no issues”, he has been alarmed by the increase of St George’s flags in his area, a practice that has been widely co-opted by the far-right and immigration opponents. Long-term, though the family has no desire to leave, they may consider it if the hostility continues.
“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 remarked. “I just find the demonisation very peculiar and terrifying, long-term.”
