Prominent British attorneys have raised alarms about a political “downward spiral”, after a Conservative MP considered a potential leadership candidate suggested that significant quantities of lawfully resident households must be removed from the country.
Controversial Statement on Residency Rights
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 revoked, to guarantee the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Conservative leader, the party head, later retreated from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While the leader initially said the statement were “broadly in line” with party policy, she later returned to current rules that only withdraw permanent residency status if someone has broken the law. Nevertheless, the statement has sparked concern for many as a signal of “perilous periods” and part of a larger political discourse.
Growing Trend of Immigration Criticism
In the past few months, politicians across political parties have absorbed anti-immigration language and repeated policies that were once considered fringe. Lately, a political party leader expressed dissatisfaction about “numerous advertisements” seemingly including “ethnic minorities”, and in September, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to eliminate the main route for immigration 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 ramifications of that statement were not comprehended, and it was targeting a particular audience,” said Martin Forde KC, who has investigated claims of discrimination within the opposition party.
Forde, whose parents migrated from the Caribbean, said the remarks were a “thinly disguised racial purity campaign”. The legal expert said the present political debate was an “absolute indictment” that someone like himself, from generations of people who had served the country, should still feel insecure.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” added Forde. “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 talk about the benefits of migration.
“The language has to evolve and has to be truthful.”
National Mood and Extremist Movements
Support for Reform has increased in the surveys, and extremist demonstrations have drawn thousands to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances are similar to extremist rallies from previous eras and fearful the UK is “going backwards” as elected officials target migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has represented hundreds of affected individuals at the heart of the residency controversy, in which UK citizens from the Commonwealth living in the UK lawfully were mistakenly categorized as unauthorized immigrants.
The lawyer said her father, who moved to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the current discourse. Recently, her daughter has asked whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Now we’re getting young people in their twenties and thirties who have got multiple generations ahead of them, born in Britain, feeling less than,” said McKenzie.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for many groups,” she continued. “The principles here, the tentacles of it extend widely when you start talking about deporting and removing people who are legally in the country, and vast numbers of them as well. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
Individuals with permanent residency, or with spouses who hold this status, have expressed that the recent policies floated by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and characterized the broader political anti-migrant discourse as discriminatory, frightening and unwelcoming.
One individual, a dual British-Jordanian citizen living in Manchester with his wife and children, said the growing support 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 ILR – at a significant expense – after relocating to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the proposed policies be implemented, he worries his family would be separated.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said Darwazeh, in his thirties. “Who knows how this plays out in the coming years.”
While day to day, he has “no issues”, he has been concerned by the increase of national symbols in his area, a practice that has been widely co-opted by the far-right and immigration opponents. Long-term, though the household has no wish to leave, they may consider it if the unfriendliness persists.
“It’s strange that in a nation where immigrants are needed, no one’s actually selling a beneficial narrative about migration at all,” he added. “I consider the demonisation very peculiar and terrifying, for the future.”
