Leading UK legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Tory lawmaker seen as a future party leader proposed that significant quantities of legally settled families must be removed from the country.
Controversial Statement on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister and a Tory whip, remarked 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, Kemi Badenoch, later distanced herself from these comments last Thursday.
While the leader initially said the remarks were “generally consistent” with official stance, she later returned to existing policy that only withdraw indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has broken the law. Nevertheless, the proposal has sparked concern for many as a signal of “perilous periods” and part of a larger political discourse.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In the past few months, leaders across various groups have absorbed anti-migrant rhetoric and repeated policies that were once considered fringe. Most recently, a Reform UK leader expressed dissatisfaction about “every advert” seemingly including “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the party’s leader, Nigel Farage, pledged to eliminate 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.
“I don’t accept that the ramifications of that phrase were not fully understood, and it was targeting a particular audience,” said Martin Forde KC, who has investigated claims of racism within the opposition party.
Forde, whose parents emigrated from the Caribbean, said Lam’s comments were a “thinly disguised keep Britain white 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 experience anxiety.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” continued the lawyer. “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 rhetoric has to change and has to be truthful.”
Public Sentiment and Extremist Movements
Backing for the party has increased in the polls, and far-right marches have drawn thousands to the capital, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the circumstances are reminiscent of far-right marches from previous eras and concerned the UK is “going backwards” as elected officials target 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 Commonwealth residing in the UK legally were mistakenly categorized as illegal migrants.
McKenzie said her father, who moved to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the current discourse. Lately, her daughter has questioned whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Currently we see young people in their 20s and 30s who have got multiple generations ahead of them, born in Britain, feeling less than,” said McKenzie.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for most political parties,” she continued. “The principles here, the tentacles of it extend widely when you start talking about deporting and removing people who are lawfully resident, and millions of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
Individuals with permanent residency, or with spouses who hold this status, have expressed that the recent policies suggested by political figures have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as racist, alarming and hostile.
One individual, a dual British-Jordanian citizen living in Manchester with his family, said the growing support of Reform in the polls had motivated 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 marriage permit. Should the proposed policies be enacted, he worries his family would be separated.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” 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 increase of national symbols in his neighbourhood, a trend that has been widely adopted by the far-right and immigration opponents. In the future, though the family has no wish to leave, they may think about it if the hostility persists.
“I find it really odd that in a country where immigrants are needed, nobody is promoting a beneficial narrative about immigration at all,” he remarked. “I consider the demonisation very odd and frightening, for the future.”
