Prominent UK attorneys have raised alarms about a political “downward spiral”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a future party leader proposed that large numbers of lawfully resident households must be removed from the country.
Divisive Remarks on Residency Rights
The MP, a shadow Home Office minister and a party enforcer, 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 Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, later retreated from these comments recently.
While Badenoch initially said the remarks were “generally consistent” with official stance, she later returned to current rules that only revoke indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has committed a crime. However, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a indication of “perilous periods” and part of a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In the past few months, politicians across various groups have absorbed anti-immigration language and repeated 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 group’s head, the figurehead, pledged to abolish 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 ramifications of that statement were not fully understood, and it was targeting a specific group,” said Martin Forde KC, who has examined claims of racism within Labour.
The barrister, whose family migrated from the West Indies, said the remarks were a “thinly disguised racial purity campaign”. The leading barrister said the present political debate was an “utter condemnation” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had served the country, should still feel insecure.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” continued Forde. “It’s alarming to see Labour feeling the sole solution to the rival party is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually talk about the positives of immigration.
“The language has to change and has to be accurate.”
Public Sentiment and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has surged in the polls, and extremist demonstrations have drawn thousands to the capital, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the circumstances are similar to far-right marches from previous eras and concerned the UK is “going backwards” 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 Britons from the former empire living in the UK legally were mistakenly categorized as illegal migrants.
The lawyer said her parent, who emigrated to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the current discourse. Recently, her daughter has questioned whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Currently we see young people in their twenties and thirties 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 legitimate policy orientation for most political parties,” she added. “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
People with permanent residency, or with spouses who hold this status, have expressed that the recent policies suggested by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as racist, alarming and hostile.
One individual, a person with dual nationality residing in Manchester with his family, said the recent surge of Reform in the polls had pushed him to get his British citizenship. 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 implemented, he fears 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 the coming years.”
While day to day, he has “no issues”, he has been concerned by the increase of St George’s flags in his area, a trend that has been widely co-opted by the far-right and immigration opponents. Long-term, though the household has no wish to leave, they may think about it if the unfriendliness 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 added. “I consider the demonisation very peculiar and terrifying, for the future.”
