Leading British legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “downward spiral”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a potential leadership candidate proposed that large numbers of legally settled families must be removed from the country.
Controversial Statement on Residency Rights
The MP, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a Tory whip, stated that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their right to stay revoked, to ensure the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Conservative leader, the party head, later retreated from these comments last Thursday.
While the leader initially said the remarks were “generally consistent” with party policy, she later returned to current rules that only withdraw permanent residency status if someone has broken the law. Nevertheless, the statement has raised alarms for many as a signal of “perilous periods” and part of a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, leaders across political parties have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed policies that were once considered fringe. Lately, a political party leader expressed dissatisfaction about “numerous advertisements” seemingly including “black and Asian people”, and in last autumn, the party’s leader, Nigel Farage, pledged to abolish the primary pathway 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 stricter border controls.
“I don’t accept that the implications of that phrase were not fully understood, and it was appealing to a specific group,” said a leading barrister, who has investigated claims of discrimination within the opposition party.
Forde, whose parents migrated from the Caribbean, said Lam’s comments were a “thinly disguised keep Britain white campaign”. The leading barrister said the present political debate was an “absolute indictment” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had contributed to 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 out-Reform Reform, rather than actually discuss the positives of immigration.
“The language has to evolve and has to be truthful.”
National Mood and Extremist Movements
Support for Reform has surged in the polls, and extremist demonstrations have attracted large crowds to London, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the circumstances are similar to extremist rallies from previous eras and fearful the UK is “going backwards” as elected officials focus on 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 residing in the UK lawfully were mistakenly categorized as unauthorized immigrants.
The lawyer said her parent, who moved to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the current discourse. Lately, her daughter has asked whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Now we’re getting young people in their 20s and 30s who have got two generations ahead of them, UK-born, feeling less than,” said the attorney.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a acceptable political direction for most political parties,” she added. “The tenets of this, the tentacles of it spread so far when you start talking about removing and expelling people who are lawfully resident, and vast numbers of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
Individuals with permanent residency, or with partners who hold this status, have shared that the new proposals floated by political figures have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and characterized the wider political debate as discriminatory, frightening and unwelcoming.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a dual British-Jordanian citizen residing in Manchester with his family, said the recent surge of the party in the surveys had motivated him to get his UK passport. For the past six years he has gone through the process of obtaining permanent residency – at a huge financial cost – after relocating to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the proposed policies be implemented, he fears his family would be separated.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said the man, 37. “It’s uncertain how this unfolds in two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no issues”, he has been alarmed by the proliferation of St George’s flags in his neighbourhood, a practice that has been widely adopted by the far-right and anti-immigration protesters. In the future, though the family has no desire to leave, they may consider it if the hostility continues.
“I find it really odd that in a nation where migrants are required, nobody is promoting a beneficial narrative about migration at all,” he remarked. “I consider the demonisation very peculiar and frightening, for the future.”
