Leading UK legal professionals have issued warnings about a political “downward spiral”, after a Conservative MP seen as a future party leader proposed that large numbers of legally settled families must be deported.
Controversial Statement on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a party enforcer, stated that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their right to stay cancelled, to guarantee the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Conservative leader, the party head, later retreated from Lam’s statement recently.
While the leader initially said the remarks were “broadly in line” with party policy, she later returned to current rules that only revoke indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has broken the law. Nevertheless, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a indication of “perilous periods” and part of a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Immigration Criticism
In recent months, leaders across political parties have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed proposals that were once seen as extreme. Most recently, a political party leader complained about “every advert” seemingly including “black and Asian people”, 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, the Labour leader said the UK risked becoming an “island of strangers” without stricter border controls.
“I don’t accept that the implications of that phrase were not comprehended, and it was appealing to a particular audience,” said a leading barrister, who has investigated claims of discrimination within the opposition party.
The barrister, whose family emigrated from the West Indies, said Lam’s comments were a barely concealed racial purity campaign”. The leading barrister said the present political debate was an “absolute indictment” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had served the country, should still experience anxiety.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” added the lawyer. “It’s alarming to see Labour feeling the only answer to the rival party is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually discuss the benefits of immigration.
“The language has to evolve and has to be accurate.”
Public Sentiment and Extremist Movements
Support for Reform has increased in the polls, and extremist demonstrations have drawn thousands to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances are reminiscent of far-right marches from decades past and concerned the UK is “going backwards” as elected officials target migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of affected individuals at the centre of the residency controversy, in which UK citizens from the Commonwealth living in the UK legally were mistakenly categorized as unauthorized immigrants.
McKenzie said her father, who emigrated 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 Caribbean passports.
“Currently we see kids in their twenties and thirties who have got multiple generations ahead of them, born in Britain, feeling less than,” said McKenzie.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a acceptable political direction for most political parties,” she continued. “The principles here, the tentacles of it extend widely when you start talking about removing and expelling 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 ILR status, or with partners who hold this status, have shared that the recent policies suggested 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 hostile.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a person with dual nationality living in the city with his family, said the recent surge of the party in the polls had motivated him to get his British citizenship. For the last several years he has gone through the process of obtaining permanent residency – at a significant expense – after relocating to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the proposed policies be enacted, he worries his family would be separated.
“It’s easy 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 day to day, he has “no problems”, he has been alarmed by the proliferation of national symbols in his neighbourhood, a trend 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 consider it if the unfriendliness continues.
“I find it really odd that in a nation where migrants are required, nobody is promoting a positive story about immigration at all,” he remarked. “I just find the vilification very odd and terrifying, for the future.”
