Leading British legal professionals have issued warnings about a political “downward spiral”, after a Tory lawmaker seen as a potential leadership candidate suggested that large numbers of legally settled families must be deported.
Controversial Statement on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a Tory whip, remarked that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their permission to remain revoked, to ensure the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Tory leader, the party head, later retreated from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While the leader initially said the remarks were “broadly in line” with official stance, she later returned to current rules that only revoke permanent residency status if someone has broken the law. Nevertheless, the statement has sparked concern for many as a indication of “dangerous times” and part of a broader political conversation.
Escalating Pattern of Immigration Criticism
In the past few months, politicians across political parties have adopted anti-immigration language and repeated policies that were once considered fringe. Most recently, a political party leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly featuring “black and Asian people”, and in September, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for immigration to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK risked becoming an “island of strangers” without stricter border controls.
“It’s hard to believe that the ramifications of that statement were not fully understood, and it was targeting a particular audience,” said a leading barrister, who has examined claims of racism within Labour.
The barrister, whose family emigrated from the Caribbean, 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 feel insecure.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” added the lawyer. “It’s alarming to see the opposition feeling the sole solution to Reform is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually discuss the positives of immigration.
“The language has to change and has to be accurate.”
National Mood and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has increased in the surveys, and extremist demonstrations have drawn thousands to the capital, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the situation are reminiscent of far-right marches from previous eras and concerned the UK is “regressing” as elected officials focus on migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has acted for hundreds of victims at the heart of the Windrush scandal, in which Britons from the former empire living in the UK legally were mistakenly categorized as illegal migrants.
McKenzie said her parent, who moved to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the present debate. Lately, her daughter has asked whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Currently we see young people in their 20s and 30s who have got two generations ahead of them, born in Britain, feeling less than,” said McKenzie.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a acceptable political direction for most political parties,” she added. “The tenets of this, the tentacles of it spread so far when you start talking about removing and expelling people who are legally in the country, and millions 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 expressed that the recent policies suggested by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and characterized the wider political debate as racist, frightening and hostile.
One individual, a person with dual nationality residing in Manchester with his wife and children, 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 procedure of securing permanent residency – at a huge financial cost – after moving to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the suggested changes be implemented, he worries his family would be separated.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said Darwazeh, in his thirties. “It’s uncertain how this plays out in the coming years.”
While day to day, he has “no issues”, he has been alarmed by the increase of national symbols in his neighbourhood, a practice that has been widely adopted by the far-right and anti-immigration protesters. Long-term, though the family has no desire to leave, they may think about it if the hostility continues.
“I find it really odd that in a country where migrants are required, nobody is promoting a beneficial narrative about immigration at all,” he added. “I consider the vilification very odd and terrifying, long-term.”
