Leading UK attorneys have raised alarms about a political “downward spiral”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a future party leader proposed that significant quantities of lawfully resident households must be deported.
Controversial Statement on Legal Status
The MP, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a Tory whip, remarked that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their permission to remain cancelled, to ensure the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Tory leader, the party head, later retreated 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 indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has broken the law. However, the proposal has sparked concern for many as a indication of “dangerous times” and part of a larger political discourse.
Escalating Pattern of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In the past few months, leaders across political parties have absorbed anti-migrant rhetoric and repeated proposals that were once considered fringe. Lately, a political party leader expressed dissatisfaction about “every advert” seemingly including “black and Asian people”, and in September, the party’s leader, Nigel Farage, pledged to eliminate the primary pathway for immigration to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK risked becoming an “nation of foreigners” without tougher immigration policies.
“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 racism within Labour.
The barrister, whose parents 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 “absolute indictment” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still experience anxiety.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” added the lawyer. “It’s desperate to see the opposition feeling the only answer to the rival party is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually discuss the positives of migration.
“The rhetoric has to change and has to be accurate.”
National Mood and Extremist Movements
Support for Reform has surged in the polls, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances are similar to far-right marches from decades past and concerned the UK is “regressing” as politicians target migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has represented hundreds of affected individuals at the centre of the Windrush scandal, in which Britons from the Commonwealth living in the UK legally were mistakenly categorized as unauthorized immigrants.
The lawyer said her parent, who moved to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the current discourse. Recently, her daughter has asked whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Now we’re getting young people in their 20s and 30s who have got multiple 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 legitimate policy orientation for many groups,” she continued. “The tenets of this, the reach of it spread so far 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 ILR status, or with spouses who hold this status, have shared that the new proposals suggested by political figures have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as racist, alarming and hostile.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a dual British-Jordanian citizen living in the city with his family, said the recent surge of the party in the polls had pushed him to get his British citizenship. For the past six years he has gone through the procedure of securing ILR – at a significant expense – after relocating to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the proposed policies be implemented, he fears his family would be separated.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said the man, in his thirties. “Who knows how this unfolds in two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no problems”, Darwazeh has been alarmed by the increase of national symbols in his area, a trend that has been widely adopted by the far-right and immigration opponents. Long-term, though the family has no desire to leave, they may consider it if the hostility continues.
“I find it really odd that in a country where migrants are required, nobody is promoting a positive story about immigration at all,” he added. “I just find the demonisation very odd and frightening, long-term.”
