Leading UK legal professionals have issued warnings about a political “downward spiral”, after a Tory lawmaker seen as a potential leadership candidate proposed that significant quantities of lawfully resident households must be removed from the country.
Controversial Statement on Legal Status
The MP, 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 ensure the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Conservative leader, the party head, later distanced herself from these comments last Thursday.
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 committed a crime. Nevertheless, the statement has sparked concern for many as a indication of “dangerous times” and part of a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In the past few months, politicians across various groups have adopted anti-immigration language and echoed proposals that were once seen as extreme. Most recently, a political party leader expressed dissatisfaction about “numerous advertisements” seemingly featuring “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to eliminate the main route for migrants to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK risked becoming an “island of strangers” without stricter border controls.
“It’s hard to believe that the ramifications of that phrase were not fully understood, and it was targeting a particular audience,” said Martin Forde KC, who has investigated claims of discrimination within Labour.
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.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” added Forde. “It’s desperate to see the opposition feeling the only answer to Reform is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually talk about the benefits of migration.
“The language has to change and has to be accurate.”
National Mood and Far-Right Activity
Backing for the party has surged in the surveys, and extremist demonstrations have attracted large crowds to London, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the circumstances 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 acted for hundreds of affected individuals at the heart of the residency controversy, in which UK citizens from the Commonwealth residing in the UK legally were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
McKenzie said her parent, who moved to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the present debate. Recently, her child has asked whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Currently we see young people in their 20s and 30s who have got multiple generations ahead of them, UK-born, experiencing insecurity,” 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 continued. “The principles here, the reach of it extend widely when you start talking about removing and removing people who are lawfully resident, and vast numbers of them as well. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
Individuals with permanent residency, or with partners who hold this status, have expressed that the new proposals suggested by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as discriminatory, frightening and unwelcoming.
One individual, a dual British-Jordanian citizen living 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 past six years he has gone through the procedure of securing permanent residency – at a significant expense – after moving 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 never happen,” said the man, 37. “It’s uncertain how this unfolds in two, three years.”
While in daily life, he has “no problems”, he has been alarmed by the increase of St George’s flags in his neighbourhood, a trend that has been widely adopted by the extremist groups and anti-immigration protesters. Long-term, though the family has no wish to leave, they may think about it if the unfriendliness continues.
“I find it really odd that in a country where immigrants are needed, nobody is promoting a positive story about migration at all,” he added. “I consider the vilification very odd and terrifying, for the future.”
