Leading British legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “downward spiral”, after a Tory lawmaker seen as a potential leadership candidate suggested that large numbers of legally settled families must be deported.
Divisive Remarks on Residency Rights
The MP, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a party enforcer, stated that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their permission to remain cancelled, to guarantee the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, later distanced herself from Lam’s statement recently.
While Badenoch initially said the statement were “generally consistent” with party policy, she later reverted to current rules that only withdraw indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has broken the law. Nevertheless, the statement 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, leaders across various groups have absorbed anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed proposals that were once considered fringe. Most recently, a political party leader complained about “every advert” seemingly featuring “ethnic minorities”, and in September, the party’s leader, Nigel Farage, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for migrants to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK risked becoming an “island of strangers” without tougher immigration policies.
“I don’t accept that the implications of that phrase were not comprehended, and it was targeting a specific group,” said Martin Forde KC, who has examined claims of discrimination within the opposition party.
The barrister, whose family emigrated from the West Indies, said the remarks were a barely concealed 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 experience anxiety.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” continued the lawyer. “It’s desperate to see Labour feeling the only answer to the rival party is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually discuss the benefits of immigration.
“The rhetoric has to change and has to be truthful.”
Public Sentiment and Far-Right Activity
Backing for the party has surged in the surveys, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to the capital, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the situation are similar to far-right marches from decades past and fearful the UK is “going backwards” as elected officials focus on migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of victims at the centre of the Windrush scandal, in which UK citizens from the former empire living in the UK legally were mistakenly categorized 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 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, experiencing insecurity,” said the attorney.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for many groups,” she continued. “The tenets of this, the tentacles of it extend widely when you start talking about deporting and removing people who are lawfully resident, and vast numbers of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
People with ILR status, or with partners who hold this status, have shared that the new proposals suggested by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as discriminatory, alarming and hostile.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a dual British-Jordanian citizen living in Manchester with his wife and children, said the growing support of Reform in the polls had pushed him to get his British citizenship. For the last several 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 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. “Who knows how this unfolds in the coming years.”
While day to day, he has “no issues”, he has been alarmed by the proliferation of national symbols in his neighbourhood, a practice that has been widely adopted by the far-right and immigration opponents. Long-term, though the family 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 required, no one’s actually selling a beneficial narrative about immigration at all,” he added. “I consider the vilification very peculiar and terrifying, for the future.”
