Prominent British legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Conservative MP seen as a potential leadership candidate suggested that large numbers of lawfully resident households must be removed from the country.
Divisive Remarks on Legal Status
The MP, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a party enforcer, stated that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their permission to remain cancelled, to ensure the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, later distanced herself from these comments recently.
While Badenoch initially said the statement were “broadly in line” with party policy, she later returned to current rules that only withdraw indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has broken the law. Nevertheless, the statement has sparked concern for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and part of a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Immigration Criticism
In the past few months, politicians across various groups have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and repeated policies that were once seen as extreme. Most recently, a political party leader expressed dissatisfaction about “numerous advertisements” seemingly featuring “ethnic minorities”, and in September, the group’s head, Nigel Farage, 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 tougher immigration policies.
“I don’t accept that the implications of that phrase were not fully understood, and it was targeting 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 barely concealed 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 served the country, should still experience anxiety.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” 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 benefits of migration.
“The rhetoric has to evolve and has to be truthful.”
National Mood and Far-Right Activity
Backing for the party has surged in the surveys, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the situation are similar to 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 represented hundreds of victims at the heart of the residency controversy, in which Britons from the former empire living in the UK lawfully were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
McKenzie said her father, who moved to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the present debate. Recently, her child has asked whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Currently we see kids in their twenties and thirties who have got multiple generations ahead of them, UK-born, feeling less than,” said McKenzie.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for many groups,” she added. “The principles here, 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 expressed that the new proposals suggested by political figures have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and characterized the wider political debate as racist, frightening and unwelcoming.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a dual British-Jordanian citizen living in the city with his wife and children, said the growing support of the party in the surveys had motivated him to get his British citizenship. For the past six years he has gone through the procedure of securing ILR – at a significant expense – after relocating to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the proposed policies 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. “Who knows how this unfolds in two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no problems”, Darwazeh has been concerned by the proliferation of national symbols in his area, a practice that has been widely adopted by the extremist groups and immigration opponents. Long-term, though the household has no desire to leave, they may consider it if the unfriendliness persists.
“I find it really odd that in a nation where immigrants are needed, nobody is promoting a positive story about immigration at all,” he remarked. “I consider the vilification very odd and terrifying, for the future.”
