Prominent UK attorneys have raised alarms about a political “downward spiral”, after a Conservative MP considered a potential leadership candidate suggested that significant quantities of legally settled families must be removed from the country.
Divisive Remarks on Residency Rights
The MP, a shadow Home Office minister and a party enforcer, stated that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their right to stay cancelled, to ensure the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, later retreated from Lam’s statement recently.
While Badenoch initially said the remarks were “broadly in line” with official stance, she later returned to current rules that only revoke permanent residency status if someone has broken the law. Nevertheless, the statement has raised alarms for many as a signal of “dangerous times” 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 echoed policies that were once seen as extreme. Lately, a Reform UK leader complained about “every advert” seemingly featuring “ethnic minorities”, and in September, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to eliminate the primary pathway for immigration to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK risked becoming an “island of strangers” without stricter border controls.
“It’s hard to believe that the ramifications of that statement were not fully understood, and it was targeting a specific group,” said a leading barrister, who has examined claims of discrimination within the opposition party.
Forde, whose parents emigrated from the Caribbean, said Lam’s comments were a barely concealed keep Britain white campaign”. The legal expert said the current political discourse 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,” added Forde. “It’s desperate to see the opposition feeling the only answer to Reform is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually discuss the positives of migration.
“The rhetoric has to evolve and has to be truthful.”
Public Sentiment and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has surged in the surveys, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to London, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the circumstances are reminiscent of extremist rallies from decades past and concerned the UK is “regressing” as politicians focus on migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of affected individuals at the heart of the residency controversy, in which UK citizens from the former empire residing in the UK lawfully were mistakenly categorized as illegal migrants.
The lawyer said her father, who moved to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the current discourse. Lately, her daughter 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.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for many groups,” she added. “The tenets of this, the reach of it extend widely when you start talking about deporting and removing 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 permanent residency, or with partners who hold this status, have shared that the recent policies floated by political figures have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and described the wider political debate as racist, alarming and hostile.
One individual, a dual British-Jordanian citizen living in the city with his family, said the growing support of the party in the surveys had pushed him to get his UK passport. 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 separated.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said the man, in his thirties. “Who knows how this plays out in the coming years.”
While day to day, he has “no problems”, Darwazeh has been alarmed by the proliferation of St George’s flags in his neighbourhood, a trend that has been widely co-opted by the extremist groups and anti-immigration protesters. In the future, though the family has no wish to leave, they may consider it if the unfriendliness persists.
“I find it really odd that in a nation where migrants are needed, no one’s actually selling a positive story about migration at all,” he added. “I just find the demonisation very odd and terrifying, long-term.”
