Prominent UK attorneys have raised alarms about a political “downward spiral”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a potential leadership candidate suggested that large numbers of legally settled families must be removed from the country.
Controversial Statement on Residency Rights
The MP, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a party enforcer, stated that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their permission to remain cancelled, to guarantee 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 statement were “generally consistent” with official stance, she later returned to existing policy that only revoke indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has broken the law. However, the statement has raised alarms for many as a indication of “perilous periods” and belonging to a larger political discourse.
Escalating Pattern of Immigration Criticism
In recent months, leaders across various groups have adopted anti-immigration language and repeated proposals that were once considered fringe. Lately, a political party leader expressed dissatisfaction about “numerous advertisements” seemingly featuring “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the main route for migrants 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 ramifications of that phrase were not fully understood, and it was targeting a specific group,” said Martin Forde KC, who has investigated claims of racism within Labour.
Forde, whose parents emigrated from the West Indies, said Lam’s comments were a “thinly disguised 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 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 Reform is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually discuss the benefits of immigration.
“The language has to change and has to be truthful.”
National Mood and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has surged in the polls, and far-right marches have drawn thousands to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances are reminiscent of extremist rallies from previous eras and concerned the UK is “going backwards” as politicians focus on migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has represented hundreds of affected individuals at the heart of the Windrush scandal, in which Britons from the former empire residing in the UK legally were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
The lawyer said her parent, who moved to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the present debate. Recently, her daughter has questioned whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Currently we see young people in their 20s and 30s who have got multiple generations ahead of them, born in Britain, experiencing insecurity,” said McKenzie.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a acceptable political direction for many groups,” she continued. “The tenets of this, the tentacles of it spread so far when you start talking about deporting and expelling people who are legally in the country, and millions of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
People with ILR status, or with spouses who hold this status, have expressed that the recent policies floated by political figures have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and characterized the broader political anti-migrant discourse as racist, frightening and unwelcoming.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a dual British-Jordanian citizen residing in the city with his family, said the growing support of the party in the polls had pushed him to get his UK passport. For the past six years he has gone through the process of securing ILR – at a significant expense – after relocating to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the suggested changes be enacted, he worries his family would be separated.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said the man, in his thirties. “It’s uncertain how this unfolds in two, three years.”
While in daily life, he has “no issues”, Darwazeh has been alarmed by the increase of St George’s flags in his neighbourhood, a practice that has been widely co-opted by the far-right and immigration opponents. In the future, though the household has no wish to leave, they may think about it if the hostility continues.
“I find it really odd that in a nation where immigrants are needed, nobody is promoting a beneficial narrative about immigration at all,” he remarked. “I consider the demonisation very peculiar and frightening, for the future.”
