Leading UK attorneys have issued warnings about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Conservative MP considered a potential leadership candidate proposed that significant quantities of lawfully resident households must be removed from the country.
Controversial Statement on Residency Rights
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister and a Tory whip, remarked that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their right to stay cancelled, to guarantee the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, later retreated from these comments last Thursday.
While Badenoch initially said the remarks were “generally consistent” with official stance, she later returned to existing policy that only withdraw indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has broken the law. However, the statement has raised alarms for many as a indication of “dangerous times” and belonging to a larger political discourse.
Growing Trend of Immigration Criticism
In the past few months, leaders across various groups have adopted anti-immigration language and echoed proposals that were once considered fringe. Most recently, a political party leader expressed dissatisfaction about “numerous advertisements” seemingly including “ethnic minorities”, and in September, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to eliminate the main route for migrants to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “island of strangers” without tougher immigration policies.
“It’s hard to believe that the implications 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.
The barrister, whose family emigrated 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 “utter condemnation” that someone like himself, from generations of people who had served the country, should still feel insecure.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” added Forde. “It’s desperate to see the opposition feeling the only answer to the rival party is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually talk about the benefits of immigration.
“The rhetoric has to evolve and has to be accurate.”
Public Sentiment and Far-Right Activity
Backing for the party has increased in the polls, and extremist demonstrations have attracted large crowds to the capital, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the circumstances are similar to extremist rallies from previous eras and concerned the UK is “regressing” as politicians focus on migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, 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.
The lawyer said her father, who moved to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the present debate. Lately, her daughter has asked whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Now we’re getting kids in their 20s and 30s who have got multiple generations ahead of them, born in Britain, 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 most political parties,” she continued. “The principles here, the reach of it spread so far when you start talking about removing and expelling 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 spouses who hold this status, have shared that the new proposals suggested by political figures have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and characterized the broader political anti-migrant discourse as discriminatory, frightening and hostile.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a dual British-Jordanian citizen residing in Manchester with his wife and children, said the growing support of the party in the polls had motivated him to get his UK passport. For the last several years he has gone through the process of obtaining permanent residency – at a huge financial cost – after moving to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the suggested changes be implemented, he fears 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 plays out in the coming years.”
While day to day, he has “no problems”, he has been concerned by the increase of national symbols in his area, a trend that has been widely adopted by the far-right and immigration opponents. In the future, though the household has no wish to leave, they may consider it if the unfriendliness continues.
“It’s strange that in a nation where immigrants are required, no one’s actually selling a positive story about migration at all,” he remarked. “I just find the demonisation very odd and frightening, for the future.”
