Prominent British legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Tory lawmaker seen as a potential leadership candidate suggested that large numbers of legally settled families must be removed from the country.
Divisive Remarks on Residency Rights
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister and a party enforcer, remarked that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their right to stay revoked, to guarantee the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Conservative leader, the party head, later retreated from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While the leader initially said the remarks were “generally consistent” with official stance, she later reverted to existing policy that only revoke indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has committed a crime. 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 recent months, politicians across various groups have absorbed anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed policies that were once considered fringe. Most recently, a Reform UK leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly including “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for immigration to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “nation of foreigners” without stricter border controls.
“It’s hard to believe that the implications of that phrase were not fully understood, and it was targeting a specific group,” said a leading barrister, who has examined claims of discrimination within the opposition party.
The barrister, whose family emigrated from the Caribbean, said Lam’s comments were a barely concealed keep Britain white campaign”. The leading barrister said the present political debate was an “utter condemnation” that someone like himself, from generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still feel insecure.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” added the lawyer. “It’s alarming to see the opposition feeling the only answer to Reform is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually talk about the positives of migration.
“The language has to evolve and has to be truthful.”
National Mood and Extremist Movements
Support for Reform has surged in the surveys, and extremist demonstrations have drawn thousands to the capital, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the circumstances are similar to extremist rallies from previous eras and concerned the UK is “regressing” as elected officials target migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of victims at the centre of the residency controversy, in which UK citizens from the Commonwealth living in the UK legally were classed wrongly as unauthorized immigrants.
McKenzie said her father, who moved to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the current discourse. Recently, her child has asked whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Now we’re getting kids in their 20s and 30s 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 reach of it spread so far when you start talking about deporting and removing people who are lawfully resident, and millions of them as well. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
People with ILR status, or with spouses who hold this status, have expressed that the recent policies floated by political figures have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and characterized the wider political debate as racist, alarming and hostile.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a dual British-Jordanian citizen living in the city with his family, said the recent surge of Reform in the surveys had pushed him to get his UK passport. For the last several years he has gone through the procedure of securing permanent residency – at a huge financial cost – after relocating to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the suggested changes be enacted, he fears his family would be split up.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said the man, in his thirties. “Who knows how this plays out in two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no problems”, he has been alarmed by the increase of St George’s flags in his neighbourhood, a practice that has been widely adopted by the far-right and anti-immigration protesters. Long-term, though the family has no wish to leave, they may consider it if the hostility continues.
“I find it really odd that in a country where migrants are needed, nobody is promoting a beneficial narrative about immigration at all,” he added. “I just find the vilification very odd and terrifying, for the future.”
