Prominent British legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a potential leadership candidate suggested that large numbers of legally settled families must be removed from the country.
Controversial Statement on Residency Rights
The MP, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a Tory whip, remarked that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their right to stay cancelled, to guarantee the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Tory leader, the party head, later retreated from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While the leader initially said the statement were “broadly in line” with official stance, she later returned to existing policy that only withdraw indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has broken the law. Nevertheless, the statement has sparked concern for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and part of a larger political discourse.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In the past few months, politicians across various groups have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed proposals that were once considered fringe. Lately, a political party leader complained about “every advert” seemingly including “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the party’s leader, Nigel Farage, pledged to eliminate the primary pathway 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 ramifications of that phrase were not fully understood, and it was targeting a particular audience,” said a leading barrister, who has examined claims of discrimination within the opposition party.
Forde, whose family emigrated from the Caribbean, said Lam’s comments were a barely concealed racial purity campaign”. The leading barrister said the current political discourse was an “utter condemnation” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still feel insecure.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” continued the lawyer. “It’s desperate to see Labour feeling the only answer to the rival party is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually discuss the benefits of migration.
“The rhetoric has to change and has to be accurate.”
Public Sentiment and Extremist Movements
Support for Reform has surged in the polls, and extremist demonstrations have attracted large crowds to the capital, leaving many British people of colour feeling the situation are similar to far-right marches from previous eras and fearful the UK is “going backwards” 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 centre of the Windrush scandal, in which Britons from the Commonwealth residing in the UK legally were mistakenly categorized as illegal migrants.
The lawyer said her father, who emigrated to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the present debate. Recently, her daughter has questioned whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Currently we see young people in their twenties and thirties who have got multiple generations ahead of them, UK-born, feeling less than,” said McKenzie.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for most political parties,” she added. “The principles here, the tentacles of it spread so far when you start talking about deporting and removing people who are legally in the country, and millions of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
People with permanent residency, or with spouses who hold this status, have shared that the recent policies floated by political figures have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and characterized the wider political debate as racist, frightening and hostile.
One individual, a person with dual nationality living in the city with his wife and children, said the recent surge of Reform in the polls had pushed him to get his British citizenship. For the last several years he has gone through the procedure of obtaining permanent residency – at a significant expense – after relocating to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the proposed policies be enacted, he fears his family would be split up.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said Darwazeh, in his thirties. “Who knows how this unfolds 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 extremist groups and anti-immigration protesters. Long-term, though the family has no desire to leave, they may think about 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 just find the vilification very odd and terrifying, long-term.”
