Leading UK legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “downward spiral”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a future party leader proposed that large numbers of lawfully resident households must be removed from the country.
Divisive Remarks on Legal Status
The MP, a shadow Home Office minister and a Tory whip, stated 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 last Thursday.
While the leader initially said the remarks were “generally consistent” with official stance, she later returned to current rules that only revoke permanent residency status if someone has broken the law. However, the statement has raised alarms for many as a signal of “perilous periods” and belonging to a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, politicians across various groups have adopted anti-immigration language and echoed policies that were once seen as extreme. Most recently, a political party leader expressed dissatisfaction about “every advert” seemingly including “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the group’s head, the figurehead, 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 “island of strangers” without tougher immigration policies.
“I don’t accept 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.
The barrister, whose parents migrated from the Caribbean, said the remarks were a “thinly disguised racial purity campaign”. The leading barrister said the present political debate was an “utter condemnation” that someone like himself, from generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still experience anxiety.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” continued Forde. “It’s desperate to see Labour feeling the only answer to the rival party is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually talk about the benefits of migration.
“The language has to evolve and has to be accurate.”
National Mood and Extremist Movements
Support for Reform has increased in the polls, and extremist demonstrations have drawn thousands to the capital, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the circumstances are similar to far-right marches from decades past and fearful the UK is “going backwards” as politicians focus on migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of victims at the centre of the residency controversy, 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 the Caribbean in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the current discourse. Recently, her child has questioned whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Now we’re getting young people in their 20s and 30s who have got multiple 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 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 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 ILR status, or with spouses who hold this status, have expressed that the new proposals floated by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and described the wider political debate as racist, alarming and hostile.
One individual, a person with dual nationality living in Manchester with his wife and children, said the growing support of the party in the polls had pushed him to get his UK passport. For the last several years he has gone through the procedure of obtaining ILR – at a huge financial cost – after relocating to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the proposed policies be implemented, he fears his family would be split up.
“It’s simple 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 issues”, he has been concerned by the increase of national symbols in his neighbourhood, a trend that has been widely co-opted by the far-right and anti-immigration protesters. In the future, though the household has no wish to leave, they may consider it if the hostility persists.
“I find it really odd that in a country where immigrants are needed, no one’s actually selling a beneficial narrative about migration at all,” he added. “I just find the demonisation very peculiar and terrifying, for the future.”
