Prominent British legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Conservative MP considered a future party leader proposed that large numbers of legally settled families must be deported.
Controversial Statement on Legal Status
The MP, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a Tory whip, 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 distanced herself from these comments recently.
While Badenoch initially said the remarks were “broadly in line” with party policy, she later reverted to existing policy that only withdraw permanent residency status if someone has broken the law. However, the statement has raised alarms for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and belonging to a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Immigration Criticism
In recent months, politicians across various groups have adopted anti-immigration language and repeated proposals that were once considered fringe. Lately, a political party leader complained about “every advert” seemingly including “ethnic minorities”, and in September, the group’s head, the figurehead, pledged to eliminate the primary pathway for migrants to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “nation of foreigners” without stricter border controls.
“I don’t accept that the implications of that phrase were not comprehended, and it was appealing to a specific group,” said a leading barrister, who has examined claims of racism within the opposition party.
Forde, whose parents migrated from the Caribbean, said Lam’s comments were a “thinly disguised racial purity campaign”. The leading barrister said the current political discourse was an “absolute indictment” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had served the country, should still feel insecure.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” added the lawyer. “It’s alarming to see Labour feeling the only answer to Reform is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually discuss the positives of migration.
“The language has to evolve and has to be truthful.”
Public Sentiment and Far-Right Activity
Backing for the party has increased in the surveys, and extremist demonstrations have drawn thousands to the capital, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances are similar to far-right marches from decades past and fearful the UK is “regressing” as politicians focus on migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of victims at the heart of the Windrush scandal, in which Britons from the former empire residing in the UK lawfully were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
The lawyer said her parent, 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 overseas citizenship.
“Currently we see kids in their 20s and 30s 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 acceptable political direction for many groups,” she added. “The tenets of this, the tentacles of it extend widely when you start talking about removing and removing people who are legally in the country, and vast numbers of them as well. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
Individuals with permanent residency, or with spouses who hold this status, have expressed that the new proposals floated by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and characterized the broader political anti-migrant discourse as racist, frightening 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 polls had motivated him to get his UK passport. For the past six years he has gone through the process of obtaining ILR – at a significant expense – after moving to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the proposed policies be implemented, he fears his family would be split up.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said Darwazeh, 37. “It’s uncertain how this unfolds in the coming 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 wish to leave, they may think about it if the hostility continues.
“It’s strange that in a country where immigrants are needed, nobody is promoting a positive story about immigration at all,” he added. “I consider the vilification very odd and terrifying, for the future.”
