Prominent UK legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Tory lawmaker seen as a future party leader suggested that large numbers of lawfully resident households must be deported.
Controversial Statement on Residency Rights
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister and a Tory whip, remarked that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their right to stay cancelled, to guarantee the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, later distanced herself from Lam’s statement recently.
While the leader initially said the remarks were “broadly in line” with official stance, she later returned to existing policy that only revoke permanent residency status if someone has committed a crime. Nevertheless, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a signal of “perilous periods” and belonging to a broader political conversation.
Escalating Pattern of Immigration Criticism
In recent months, leaders across political parties have absorbed anti-migrant rhetoric and repeated proposals that were once seen as extreme. Most recently, a Reform UK leader expressed dissatisfaction about “numerous advertisements” seemingly including “ethnic minorities”, and in September, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the main route for migrants to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK risked becoming an “island of strangers” without stricter border controls.
“I don’t accept that the implications of that phrase were not comprehended, and it was targeting a particular audience,” said Martin Forde KC, who has examined claims of discrimination within Labour.
The barrister, whose parents emigrated from the Caribbean, said Lam’s comments were a “thinly disguised 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 experience anxiety.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” continued Forde. “It’s desperate to see Labour feeling the sole solution to Reform is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually talk about the positives of immigration.
“The language has to evolve and has to be accurate.”
National Mood and Far-Right Activity
Backing for the party has increased in the surveys, and extremist demonstrations have drawn thousands to London, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the circumstances are reminiscent of far-right marches from previous eras and concerned the UK is “going backwards” as elected officials target migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has acted for hundreds of affected individuals at the centre of the residency controversy, in which Britons from the Commonwealth residing in the UK legally were mistakenly categorized as illegal migrants.
McKenzie said her father, who moved to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the present debate. Recently, her daughter has asked whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Now we’re getting young people in their twenties and thirties who have got two generations ahead of them, born in Britain, experiencing insecurity,” said McKenzie.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a acceptable political direction for many groups,” she continued. “The tenets of this, the tentacles of it spread so far 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?”
Personal Impact
Individuals with permanent residency, or with partners who hold this status, have shared that the recent policies floated by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as discriminatory, frightening and unwelcoming.
One individual, a dual British-Jordanian citizen residing in Manchester with his wife and children, said the growing support of the party in the surveys had motivated him to get his UK passport. For the past six years he has gone through the procedure of obtaining ILR – at a significant expense – after moving to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the suggested changes be implemented, he worries his family would be split up.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said Darwazeh, in his thirties. “Who knows how this unfolds in two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no problems”, Darwazeh has been alarmed by the proliferation of national symbols in his neighbourhood, a trend that has been widely adopted by the far-right and anti-immigration protesters. Long-term, though the household has no desire to leave, they may think about it if the unfriendliness continues.
“I find it really odd that in a country where migrants are needed, nobody is promoting a positive story about immigration at all,” he added. “I just find the vilification very odd and frightening, long-term.”
