Leading UK attorneys have issued warnings about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Conservative MP seen as a potential leadership candidate proposed that significant quantities of legally settled families must be removed from the country.
Divisive Remarks on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister and a Tory whip, stated that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their permission to remain revoked, to ensure the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, later retreated from these comments recently.
While Badenoch initially said the remarks were “generally consistent” with party policy, she later reverted to existing policy that only revoke indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has broken the law. Nevertheless, the statement has raised alarms for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and part of a broader political conversation.
Escalating Pattern of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In the past few months, leaders across various groups have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and repeated policies that were once considered fringe. Lately, a Reform UK leader expressed dissatisfaction about “numerous advertisements” seemingly featuring “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the group’s head, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for migrants to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK risked 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 appealing to a specific group,” said Martin Forde KC, who has examined claims of racism within Labour.
Forde, whose family migrated from the West Indies, said the remarks were a “thinly disguised racial purity campaign”. The leading barrister said the present political debate was an “absolute indictment” that someone like himself, from generations of people who had served the country, should still feel insecure.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” continued Forde. “It’s alarming to see the opposition feeling the only answer to the rival party is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually talk about the benefits of immigration.
“The rhetoric has to evolve and has to be truthful.”
National Mood and Extremist Movements
Support for Reform has surged in the polls, and extremist demonstrations have attracted large crowds to the capital, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the situation are reminiscent of extremist rallies from previous eras and concerned the UK is “going backwards” as elected officials target migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has represented hundreds of victims at the centre of the Windrush scandal, in which Britons from the Commonwealth residing in the UK legally were mistakenly categorized as unauthorized immigrants.
The lawyer said her father, who emigrated to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the current discourse. Recently, her daughter has questioned whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Now we’re getting kids in their twenties and thirties who have got two generations ahead of them, born in Britain, experiencing insecurity,” said the attorney.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a acceptable political direction for many groups,” she added. “The tenets of this, the tentacles of it extend widely when you start talking about removing and expelling people who are legally in the country, and millions of them as well. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
Individuals with ILR status, or with spouses 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 described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as discriminatory, frightening and unwelcoming.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a person with dual nationality living in Manchester with his family, said the growing support of the party in the surveys had pushed him to get his UK passport. For the past six years he has gone through the process of securing permanent residency – at a huge financial cost – after relocating to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the suggested changes be implemented, he worries 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 unfolds in the coming years.”
While day to day, he has “no problems”, he has been alarmed by the increase of national symbols in his neighbourhood, a practice that has been widely co-opted by the far-right and immigration opponents. In the future, 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 needed, nobody is promoting a beneficial narrative about migration at all,” he added. “I just find the vilification very peculiar and frightening, for the future.”