Prominent UK legal professionals have issued warnings about a political “downward spiral”, after a Conservative MP considered a potential leadership candidate proposed that large numbers of lawfully resident households must be removed from the country.
Controversial Statement on Legal Status
The MP, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a party enforcer, stated that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their permission to remain revoked, to guarantee the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, later distanced herself 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 revoke permanent residency status if someone has committed a crime. However, the statement has sparked concern for many as a indication of “perilous periods” and part of a larger political discourse.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, politicians across political parties have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and repeated policies that were once seen as extreme. Lately, a political party leader expressed dissatisfaction about “every advert” seemingly including “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to eliminate the primary pathway 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 implications of that statement were not fully understood, and it was appealing to a specific group,” said Martin Forde KC, who has examined claims of racism within Labour.
Forde, whose parents migrated from the Caribbean, said the remarks were a “thinly disguised keep Britain white campaign”. The leading barrister said the current political discourse was an “utter condemnation” that someone like himself, from generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still feel insecure.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” added the lawyer. “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 discuss the benefits of immigration.
“The language has to change and has to be accurate.”
Public Sentiment and Extremist Movements
Backing for the party has increased in the polls, and far-right marches have drawn thousands to the capital, leaving many British people of colour feeling the situation are reminiscent of far-right marches from previous eras and concerned the UK is “going backwards” as politicians target migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of victims at the centre of the residency controversy, in which UK citizens from the Commonwealth living in the UK legally were mistakenly categorized as unauthorized immigrants.
McKenzie said her parent, 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 overseas citizenship.
“Currently we see kids in their 20s and 30s who have got multiple generations ahead of them, born in Britain, feeling less than,” 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 tenets of this, the tentacles of it extend widely when you start talking about deporting and expelling people who are lawfully resident, and vast numbers of them as well. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
Individuals with permanent residency, or with partners who hold this status, have shared that the new proposals suggested by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as racist, frightening and unwelcoming.
One individual, a dual British-Jordanian citizen living in Manchester with his wife and children, said the growing support of the party in the surveys had pushed him to get his British citizenship. For the past six years he has gone through the procedure of obtaining ILR – at a huge financial cost – after moving to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the suggested changes be enacted, he worries his family would be split up.
“It’s simple 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 increase of St George’s flags in his area, a practice that has been widely co-opted by the far-right and immigration opponents. Long-term, though the family has no desire to leave, they may think about it if the hostility continues.
“I find it really odd that in a country where migrants are required, no one’s actually selling a beneficial narrative about migration at all,” he remarked. “I consider the demonisation very odd and frightening, long-term.”
