Leading British attorneys have raised alarms about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Conservative MP seen as a future party leader proposed that significant quantities of lawfully resident households must be removed from the country.
Divisive Remarks on Residency Rights
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister and a Tory whip, stated that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their right to stay revoked, to ensure the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Tory leader, the party head, later retreated from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While the leader initially said the statement were “generally consistent” with party policy, she later returned to current rules that only withdraw permanent residency status if someone has committed a crime. Nevertheless, the statement has sparked concern for many as a signal of “perilous periods” and part of a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Immigration Criticism
In recent months, politicians across political parties have absorbed anti-migrant rhetoric and repeated proposals that were once seen as extreme. Most recently, a political party leader expressed dissatisfaction about “every advert” seemingly featuring “black and Asian people”, and in last autumn, the group’s head, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for immigration to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “island of strangers” without tougher immigration policies.
“It’s hard to believe that the ramifications of that phrase were not fully understood, and it was targeting a particular audience,” said Martin Forde KC, who has examined claims of racism 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 generations of people who had served the country, should still experience anxiety.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” continued Forde. “It’s alarming to see Labour feeling the sole solution to the rival party is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually talk about the benefits of migration.
“The language has to evolve and has to be accurate.”
National Mood and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has surged in the polls, and extremist demonstrations have attracted large crowds to the capital, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances are similar to extremist rallies from decades past and fearful the UK is “going backwards” as politicians focus on migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has acted for hundreds of affected individuals at the centre of the residency controversy, in which Britons from the former empire living in the UK legally were classed wrongly 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 asked whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Now we’re getting young people in their 20s and 30s who have got two generations ahead of them, UK-born, experiencing insecurity,” said McKenzie.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for most political parties,” she added. “The tenets of this, the reach of it extend widely when you start talking about removing and removing people who are lawfully resident, and millions of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
Individuals with permanent residency, or with spouses who hold this status, have shared that the recent policies floated by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and characterized the broader political anti-migrant discourse as discriminatory, frightening and unwelcoming.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a dual British-Jordanian citizen living in the city with his family, said the recent surge of Reform in the surveys had pushed him to get his British citizenship. For the last several years he has gone through the procedure of securing permanent residency – at a significant expense – after relocating to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the suggested changes be enacted, he fears his family would be separated.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said Darwazeh, in his thirties. “It’s uncertain how this plays out in the coming years.”
While day to day, he has “no issues”, he 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 anti-immigration protesters. In the future, though the household has no wish to leave, they may think about it if the unfriendliness persists.
“I find it really odd that in a country where migrants are needed, nobody is promoting a positive story about migration at all,” he remarked. “I consider the vilification very odd and frightening, long-term.”
