Prominent British attorneys have issued warnings about a political “downward spiral”, after a Tory lawmaker seen as a potential leadership candidate suggested 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 Tory whip, stated that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their right to stay revoked, to guarantee the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, later distanced herself from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While Badenoch initially said the remarks were “generally consistent” with official stance, she later returned to existing policy that only revoke permanent residency status if someone has committed a crime. However, the proposal has sparked concern for many as a indication of “perilous periods” and belonging to a larger political discourse.
Growing Trend of Immigration Criticism
In recent months, politicians across various groups have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and repeated proposals that were once seen as extreme. Most recently, a Reform UK leader expressed dissatisfaction about “numerous advertisements” seemingly featuring “black and Asian people”, and in last autumn, the group’s head, Nigel Farage, pledged to abolish the main route for immigration to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “nation of foreigners” without tougher immigration policies.
“It’s hard to believe that the implications 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 the opposition party.
Forde, whose parents migrated from the Caribbean, said the remarks were a “thinly disguised racial purity campaign”. The leading barrister 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 feel insecure.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” continued Forde. “It’s alarming to see Labour feeling the sole solution to the rival party is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually discuss the positives of migration.
“The language has to evolve and has to be truthful.”
Public Sentiment and Extremist Movements
Support for Reform has surged in the surveys, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the situation are reminiscent of extremist rallies from previous eras and concerned the UK is “regressing” as elected officials target migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has acted for hundreds of affected individuals at the centre of the Windrush scandal, in which UK citizens from the former empire residing in the UK legally were classed wrongly as unauthorized immigrants.
The lawyer said her parent, who emigrated to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the present debate. Lately, her daughter has asked whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Now we’re getting kids in their 20s and 30s who have got multiple generations ahead of them, UK-born, experiencing insecurity,” said the attorney.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for many groups,” she added. “The tenets of this, the reach of it extend widely when you start talking about deporting and expelling people who are legally in the country, and vast numbers of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
People with permanent residency, or with spouses who hold this status, have expressed that the recent policies floated by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and characterized the wider political debate as discriminatory, alarming and unwelcoming.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a person with dual nationality residing in Manchester with his wife and children, said the recent surge of Reform in the surveys had pushed him to get his British citizenship. For the past six years he has gone through the process of obtaining permanent residency – at a significant expense – after moving 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, 37. “Who knows how this plays out in two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no problems”, he has been concerned by the proliferation of St George’s flags in his area, a practice that has been widely co-opted by the extremist groups and immigration opponents. In the future, though the household has no desire to leave, they may consider it if the hostility persists.
“I find it really odd that in a nation where immigrants are needed, no one’s actually selling a beneficial narrative about immigration at all,” he added. “I consider the vilification very odd and frightening, for the future.”
