Leading British attorneys have raised alarms about a political “downward spiral”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a potential leadership candidate proposed that significant quantities of legally settled families must be removed from the country.
Divisive Remarks 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 revoked, to ensure the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, later distanced herself from these comments recently.
While Badenoch initially said the statement were “generally consistent” with party policy, she later reverted to current rules that only revoke permanent residency status if someone has committed a crime. However, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a indication of “dangerous times” and belonging to a broader political conversation.
Escalating Pattern of Immigration Criticism
In recent months, leaders across various groups have adopted anti-immigration language and repeated policies that were once seen as extreme. Most recently, a Reform UK leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly including “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the main route for immigration 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 implications of that phrase were not fully understood, and it was appealing to a particular audience,” said a leading barrister, who has examined claims of discrimination within the opposition party.
Forde, whose parents emigrated from the Caribbean, said the remarks were a “thinly disguised keep Britain white campaign”. The legal expert said the current political discourse was an “utter condemnation” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had served the country, should still experience anxiety.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” added the lawyer. “It’s alarming to see the opposition feeling the sole solution 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.”
National Mood and Far-Right Activity
Backing for the party has increased in the surveys, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to the capital, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the situation are reminiscent of extremist rallies from decades past and fearful the UK is “going backwards” as politicians target migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has acted for hundreds of affected individuals at the centre of the residency controversy, in which UK citizens from the former empire living in the UK lawfully were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
The lawyer said her father, who moved to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the current discourse. Lately, her child has questioned whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Now we’re getting young people in their twenties and thirties who have got two generations ahead of them, UK-born, experiencing insecurity,” 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 deporting and removing people who are legally in the country, and vast numbers 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 expressed that the new proposals floated by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and described the wider political debate as discriminatory, alarming and unwelcoming.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a dual British-Jordanian citizen living in the city with his family, said the growing support of Reform in the polls had motivated him to get his UK passport. For the last several years he has gone through the procedure of obtaining permanent residency – at a huge financial cost – after relocating to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the suggested changes be implemented, he worries his family would be separated.
“It’s easy 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”, he has been concerned by the increase of St George’s flags in his neighbourhood, a practice that has been widely co-opted by the far-right and anti-immigration protesters. Long-term, though the household has no wish to leave, they may think about it if the unfriendliness continues.
“It’s strange that in a country where migrants are needed, no one’s actually selling a beneficial narrative about immigration at all,” he added. “I just find the vilification very odd and terrifying, for the future.”
