Leading British legal professionals have issued warnings about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Conservative MP seen as a future party leader proposed that large numbers of lawfully resident households must be removed from the country.
Controversial Statement on Residency Rights
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 cancelled, to ensure the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Conservative leader, the party head, later distanced herself from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While Badenoch initially said the statement were “broadly in line” with official stance, she later returned to current rules that only revoke indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has broken the law. However, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a indication of “perilous periods” and belonging to a broader political conversation.
Escalating Pattern of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, leaders across various groups have absorbed anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed policies that were once seen as extreme. Most recently, a Reform UK leader expressed dissatisfaction about “numerous advertisements” seemingly featuring “ethnic minorities”, and in September, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to abolish 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 fully understood, and it was appealing to a particular audience,” said Martin Forde KC, who has investigated claims of racism within Labour.
Forde, whose family migrated from the West Indies, said Lam’s comments were a “thinly disguised keep Britain white campaign”. The legal expert said the current political discourse was an “utter condemnation” that someone like himself, from generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still feel insecure.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” continued Forde. “It’s alarming to see the opposition feeling the sole solution to Reform is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually talk about the benefits of migration.
“The rhetoric has to evolve and has to be truthful.”
National Mood and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has surged in the polls, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to the capital, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the circumstances are similar to far-right marches from previous eras and concerned the UK is “going backwards” as politicians focus on migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has acted for hundreds of affected individuals at the heart of the residency controversy, in which Britons from the Commonwealth living in the UK lawfully were classed wrongly as unauthorized immigrants.
The lawyer said her father, who moved to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the current discourse. Lately, her child has asked whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Currently we see kids in their 20s and 30s who have got multiple generations ahead of them, UK-born, experiencing insecurity,” said McKenzie.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for most political parties,” she added. “The tenets of this, the reach of it extend widely when you start talking about deporting and removing people who are lawfully resident, and millions 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, alarming and unwelcoming.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a person with dual nationality residing in Manchester with his family, said the growing support of Reform in the surveys had motivated him to get his UK passport. For the last several years he has gone through the process of securing ILR – at a huge financial cost – after relocating to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the proposed policies be enacted, he worries his family would be split up.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said the man, 37. “It’s uncertain how this unfolds in the coming years.”
While day to day, he has “no problems”, Darwazeh has been concerned by the increase of St George’s flags in his area, a trend 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 think about 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 immigration at all,” he added. “I just find the vilification very odd and terrifying, long-term.”
