Leading British legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “downward spiral”, after a Tory lawmaker seen as a potential leadership candidate proposed that significant quantities of legally settled families must be removed from the country.
Controversial Statement on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister and a party enforcer, 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, the party head, later retreated from these comments recently.
While the leader initially said the statement were “generally consistent” with official stance, she later returned to current rules that only withdraw indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has broken the law. Nevertheless, the statement has sparked concern for many as a signal of “perilous periods” and belonging to a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, leaders across various groups have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and repeated proposals that were once seen as extreme. Lately, a political party leader expressed dissatisfaction about “numerous advertisements” seemingly featuring “black and Asian people”, and in September, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the main route for immigration to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “island of strangers” without stricter border controls.
“It’s hard to believe that the ramifications of that phrase were not comprehended, and it was appealing to a specific group,” said a leading barrister, who has examined claims of discrimination within the opposition party.
The barrister, whose family emigrated from the Caribbean, said Lam’s comments were a “thinly disguised racial purity campaign”. The leading barrister said the current political discourse was an “absolute indictment” 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 desperate to see Labour feeling the sole solution to the rival party 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 accurate.”
Public Sentiment and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has increased in the polls, and extremist demonstrations have attracted large crowds to the capital, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the circumstances are reminiscent of far-right marches from decades past and concerned the UK is “regressing” as elected officials target migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has acted for hundreds of victims at the heart of the Windrush scandal, in which UK citizens from the Commonwealth living in the UK legally were classed wrongly 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 child has questioned whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Now we’re getting kids in their twenties and thirties who have got two generations ahead of them, born in Britain, feeling less than,” said McKenzie.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a acceptable political direction for many groups,” she added. “The tenets of this, the tentacles of it spread so far when you start talking about deporting and expelling people who are legally in the country, and vast numbers of them as well. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
People with permanent residency, or with spouses who hold this status, have shared that the recent policies suggested by political figures have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and described the wider political debate as racist, frightening and unwelcoming.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a person with dual nationality living in the city with his family, said the recent surge of the party in the polls had motivated him to get his British citizenship. For the past six years he has gone through the procedure of obtaining permanent residency – at a huge financial cost – after relocating to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the proposed policies be enacted, he worries his family would be separated.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said Darwazeh, 37. “It’s uncertain how this plays out in two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no issues”, Darwazeh 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 immigration opponents. In the future, though the family has no wish to leave, they may consider it if the hostility continues.
“I find it really odd that in a nation where immigrants are needed, no one’s actually selling a positive story about immigration at all,” he remarked. “I consider the vilification very odd and terrifying, long-term.”
