Leading British legal professionals have issued warnings about a political “downward spiral”, after a Conservative MP considered a future party leader suggested that significant quantities of legally settled families must be removed from the country.
Divisive Remarks on Legal Status
The MP, a shadow Home Office minister and a party enforcer, remarked that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their permission to remain cancelled, to guarantee the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Tory leader, the party head, later distanced herself from Lam’s statement recently.
While the leader initially said the remarks were “broadly in line” with official stance, she later reverted to current rules that only revoke indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has committed a crime. However, the statement has sparked concern for many as a signal of “perilous periods” and belonging to a larger political discourse.
Growing Trend of Immigration Criticism
In recent months, leaders across various groups have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and repeated policies that were once considered fringe. Lately, a Reform UK leader complained about “every advert” seemingly including “black and Asian people”, and in September, the group’s head, 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 statement were not comprehended, and it was targeting a particular audience,” said a leading barrister, who has investigated claims of racism within Labour.
The barrister, whose family emigrated from the Caribbean, said Lam’s comments were a “thinly disguised keep Britain white campaign”. The legal expert 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 feel insecure.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” added the lawyer. “It’s alarming to see Labour feeling the sole solution to Reform is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually discuss the positives of immigration.
“The rhetoric has to change and has to be accurate.”
National Mood and Extremist Movements
Support for Reform has increased in the surveys, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the situation are similar to far-right marches from decades past and concerned the UK is “going backwards” as elected officials focus on migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has represented hundreds of victims at the heart of the Windrush scandal, in which UK citizens from the Commonwealth residing in the UK lawfully were classed wrongly as unauthorized immigrants.
The lawyer said her parent, who moved to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the current discourse. Recently, her child has asked whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Currently we see kids in their twenties and thirties who have got two generations ahead of them, born in Britain, experiencing insecurity,” said the attorney.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for most political parties,” she continued. “The tenets of this, the tentacles of it spread so far when you start talking about removing and removing people who are legally in the country, and vast numbers of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
Individuals with permanent residency, or with partners who hold this status, have shared that the recent policies floated by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and described the wider political debate as racist, frightening and unwelcoming.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a person with dual nationality living in Manchester with his family, said the growing support of Reform in the surveys had pushed 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 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 not occur,” said the man, 37. “Who knows how this unfolds in two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no issues”, he has been alarmed by the proliferation of St George’s flags in his area, a practice that has been widely co-opted by the far-right and anti-immigration protesters. In the future, though the household has no desire to leave, they may think about it if the hostility continues.
“I find it really odd that in a nation where migrants are needed, nobody is promoting a positive story about immigration at all,” he added. “I just find the demonisation very peculiar and terrifying, for the future.”
