Leading UK attorneys have raised alarms about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Conservative MP 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 shadow Home Office minister and a Tory whip, stated that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their permission to remain cancelled, to ensure the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Tory leader, the party head, later retreated from these comments recently.
While the leader initially said the remarks were “generally consistent” with party policy, she later reverted to current rules that only withdraw permanent residency status if someone has broken the law. Nevertheless, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a signal of “perilous periods” and belonging to a larger political discourse.
Escalating Pattern of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, leaders across political parties have absorbed anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed policies that were once considered fringe. Most recently, a political party leader complained about “every advert” seemingly including “ethnic minorities”, and in September, 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 stricter border controls.
“I don’t accept that the ramifications of that phrase were not comprehended, and it was appealing to a particular audience,” said Martin Forde KC, who has investigated claims of racism within Labour.
Forde, whose parents emigrated from the Caribbean, said Lam’s comments were a barely concealed racial purity campaign”. The legal expert said the current political discourse 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,” continued Forde. “It’s desperate to see Labour feeling the only answer to Reform is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually talk about the benefits of migration.
“The rhetoric has to evolve and has to be truthful.”
Public Sentiment and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has increased in the polls, and extremist demonstrations have drawn thousands to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the situation are similar to extremist rallies from decades past and concerned the UK is “going backwards” as politicians target migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous 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 living in the UK legally were mistakenly categorized as unauthorized immigrants.
McKenzie said her father, who moved to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the current discourse. Recently, her child has questioned whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Now we’re getting kids in their twenties and thirties who have got multiple generations ahead of them, UK-born, feeling less than,” said the attorney.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for most political parties,” she added. “The tenets of this, the tentacles 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. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
People with permanent residency, or with spouses who hold this status, have shared 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, alarming and hostile.
One individual, a person with dual nationality living in Manchester with his family, said the growing support of the party in the polls had pushed him to get his British citizenship. 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 marriage permit. Should the suggested changes be implemented, he fears his family would be split up.
“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 day to day, he has “no issues”, Darwazeh has been alarmed by the proliferation of national symbols in his area, a practice that has been widely co-opted by the extremist groups and immigration opponents. In the future, though the family has no wish to leave, they may think about it if the hostility persists.
“It’s strange that in a nation where migrants are required, no one’s actually selling a beneficial narrative about migration at all,” he added. “I just find the demonisation very odd and frightening, for the future.”
