Prominent UK legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “downward spiral”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a potential leadership candidate proposed that large numbers of legally settled families must be deported.
Divisive Remarks on Residency Rights
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister and a party enforcer, stated that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their right to stay cancelled, to guarantee the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Tory leader, the party head, later retreated from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While Badenoch initially said the remarks were “generally consistent” with party policy, she later returned to existing policy that only revoke permanent residency status if someone has broken the law. Nevertheless, the proposal has sparked concern for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and part of a broader political conversation.
Escalating Pattern of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, politicians across various groups have absorbed anti-immigration language and echoed policies that were once seen as extreme. Most recently, a Reform UK leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly including “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to eliminate the primary pathway for migrants to gain 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 ramifications of that phrase were not comprehended, and it was targeting a particular audience,” said a leading barrister, who has examined claims of racism within Labour.
The barrister, whose parents migrated from the Caribbean, said Lam’s comments were a barely concealed keep Britain white campaign”. The legal expert said the present political debate was an “utter condemnation” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still feel insecure.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” added Forde. “It’s desperate to see the opposition feeling the only answer to Reform is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually discuss the benefits of immigration.
“The language has to evolve and has to be accurate.”
Public Sentiment and Extremist Movements
Backing for the party has surged in the polls, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the situation are similar to extremist rallies from previous eras and fearful the UK is “regressing” as politicians target migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of victims at the heart of the Windrush scandal, in which Britons from the Commonwealth living in the UK lawfully were classed wrongly as unauthorized immigrants.
The lawyer said her parent, who emigrated to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the present debate. Lately, her daughter has asked whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Currently we see young people in their twenties and thirties who have got multiple generations ahead of them, born in Britain, feeling less than,” said the attorney.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a acceptable political direction for many groups,” she continued. “The principles here, the reach 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 ILR status, or with partners who hold this status, have expressed that the new proposals floated by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and characterized the broader political anti-migrant discourse as discriminatory, frightening and unwelcoming.
One individual, a person with dual nationality living in the city with his family, said the recent surge of the party in the polls had motivated him to get his UK passport. For the past six years he has gone through the process of securing permanent residency – at a significant expense – after relocating to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the proposed policies be enacted, he worries his family would be separated.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said the man, in his thirties. “It’s uncertain how this unfolds in the coming years.”
While in daily life, 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 adopted by the far-right and immigration opponents. In the future, though the household has no wish to leave, they may consider it if the hostility continues.
“It’s strange that in a country where immigrants are needed, no one’s actually selling a beneficial narrative about migration at all,” he added. “I consider the vilification very peculiar and terrifying, for the future.”
