Prominent UK legal professionals have issued warnings about a political “downward spiral”, after a Conservative MP seen as a future party leader proposed that large numbers of legally settled families must be deported.
Divisive Remarks on Residency Rights
The MP, a shadow Home Office minister and a Tory whip, remarked that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their permission to remain cancelled, to ensure the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Conservative leader, the party head, later retreated from these comments last Thursday.
While Badenoch initially said the remarks were “broadly in line” with party policy, she later returned to current rules that only revoke indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has broken the law. Nevertheless, the statement has raised alarms for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and belonging to a broader political conversation.
Escalating Pattern of Immigration Criticism
In the past few months, politicians across various groups have absorbed anti-immigration language and repeated proposals that were once seen as extreme. Lately, a Reform UK leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly including “ethnic minorities”, and in September, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to eliminate the primary pathway for immigration to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK risked becoming an “nation of foreigners” without stricter border controls.
“I don’t accept that the implications of that statement were not fully understood, and it was targeting a particular audience,” said Martin Forde KC, who has investigated claims of discrimination within the opposition party.
The barrister, whose parents migrated from the Caribbean, said Lam’s comments were a “thinly disguised keep Britain white 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 feel insecure.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” continued Forde. “It’s desperate to see the opposition feeling the only answer to the rival party is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually talk about the positives of immigration.
“The rhetoric has to change and has to be truthful.”
Public Sentiment and Far-Right Activity
Backing for the party has surged in the surveys, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to the capital, leaving many British people of colour feeling the situation are similar to extremist rallies from decades past and concerned the UK is “going backwards” as elected officials target migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of victims at the centre of the residency controversy, in which UK citizens from the former empire living in the UK lawfully were classed wrongly as unauthorized immigrants.
McKenzie said her father, who emigrated to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the current discourse. Lately, her child has questioned 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 McKenzie.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a acceptable political direction for most political parties,” she continued. “The tenets of this, 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. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
Individuals with ILR status, or with spouses 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 characterized the wider political debate as discriminatory, alarming and unwelcoming.
One individual, a dual British-Jordanian citizen residing in Manchester with his family, said the recent surge of the party in the polls had motivated him to get his UK passport. For the past six years he has gone through the procedure of securing permanent residency – at a significant expense – after moving to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the proposed policies be enacted, he worries his family would be separated.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said the man, in his thirties. “Who knows how this unfolds in two, three years.”
While in daily life, he has “no issues”, Darwazeh 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 desire to leave, they may consider it if the hostility persists.
“I find it really odd that in a nation where migrants are required, no one’s actually selling a beneficial narrative about immigration at all,” he remarked. “I consider the demonisation very peculiar and frightening, long-term.”
