Leading UK legal professionals have issued warnings about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a future party leader proposed that large numbers of legally settled families must be removed from the country.
Divisive Remarks on Legal Status
The MP, a shadow Home Office minister and a party enforcer, remarked that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their right to stay cancelled, to ensure the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Tory leader, the party head, later distanced herself from these comments last Thursday.
While the leader initially said the statement were “generally consistent” with party policy, she later returned to current rules that only withdraw indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has broken the law. Nevertheless, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a indication of “perilous periods” and part of a larger political discourse.
Escalating Pattern of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, politicians across political parties have absorbed anti-immigration language and repeated proposals that were once considered fringe. Most recently, a Reform UK leader expressed dissatisfaction about “every advert” seemingly including “ethnic minorities”, and in September, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the main route for migrants to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK risked becoming an “island of strangers” without tougher immigration policies.
“It’s hard to believe that the ramifications of that statement were not fully understood, and it was targeting a particular audience,” said a leading barrister, who has examined claims of racism within Labour.
Forde, whose parents migrated from the West Indies, said Lam’s comments were a barely concealed racial purity campaign”. The legal expert 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,” added Forde. “It’s alarming to see Labour feeling the sole solution to Reform is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually talk about the benefits of migration.
“The rhetoric has to change and has to be truthful.”
National Mood and Far-Right Activity
Backing for the party has increased in the surveys, and extremist demonstrations have drawn thousands to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the situation are similar to extremist rallies from previous eras and fearful the UK is “going backwards” as elected officials focus on migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has acted for hundreds of victims at the centre of the residency controversy, in which Britons from the Commonwealth living in the UK lawfully were mistakenly categorized as illegal migrants.
The lawyer said her father, who emigrated to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the present debate. Recently, her child has questioned whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“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 most political parties,” she added. “The tenets of this, the reach of it extend widely when you start talking about removing and expelling people who are lawfully resident, and vast numbers of them as well. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
People with permanent residency, or with partners who hold this status, have shared that the recent policies floated by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and characterized the wider political debate as racist, alarming and hostile.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a person with dual nationality residing in Manchester with his family, said the growing support of the party in the polls had pushed him to get his UK passport. For the last several years he has gone through the procedure of securing permanent residency – at a huge financial cost – after relocating to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the proposed policies be implemented, he worries his family would be separated.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said Darwazeh, 37. “Who knows how this unfolds in the coming years.”
While day to day, he has “no issues”, he has been alarmed by the increase of national symbols in his neighbourhood, a trend that has been widely co-opted by the extremist groups and immigration opponents. In the future, though the family has no desire to leave, they may think about it if the hostility continues.
“I find it really odd that in a country where immigrants are needed, no one’s actually selling a beneficial narrative about migration at all,” he added. “I just find the demonisation very peculiar and terrifying, long-term.”
