Prominent UK legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “downward spiral”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a future party leader suggested that large numbers of lawfully resident households must be deported.
Divisive Remarks on Residency Rights
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister and a Tory whip, remarked that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their right to stay revoked, to ensure the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, later retreated from these comments last Thursday.
While Badenoch initially said the remarks were “generally consistent” with party policy, she later reverted to current rules that only withdraw permanent residency status if someone has broken the law. Nevertheless, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a signal of “perilous periods” and part of a broader political conversation.
Escalating Pattern of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, leaders across various groups have absorbed anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed policies that were once considered fringe. Lately, a Reform UK leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly including “black and Asian people”, and in September, the party’s leader, Nigel Farage, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for migrants to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK risked becoming an “nation of foreigners” without tougher immigration policies.
“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 the opposition party.
The barrister, whose parents emigrated from the West Indies, 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 feel insecure.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” continued the lawyer. “It’s desperate to see the opposition feeling the only answer to Reform is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually talk about the benefits of migration.
“The rhetoric has to change and has to be accurate.”
Public Sentiment and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has increased in the polls, and extremist demonstrations have drawn thousands to London, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the circumstances are reminiscent of extremist rallies from previous eras and fearful the UK is “regressing” as elected officials target migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has acted for hundreds of victims at the centre of the residency controversy, in which Britons from the Commonwealth residing in the UK lawfully were classed wrongly as unauthorized immigrants.
McKenzie said her parent, who moved to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the current discourse. Recently, her daughter has asked whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Now we’re getting kids in their 20s and 30s who have got multiple generations ahead of them, UK-born, feeling less than,” said the attorney.
“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 millions of them as well. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
Individuals with permanent residency, or with spouses who hold this status, have expressed that the new proposals floated by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and characterized the wider political debate as racist, frightening and hostile.
One individual, a person with dual nationality living in Manchester with his wife and children, said the recent surge of the party in the polls had motivated him to get his British citizenship. For the last several years he has gone through the procedure of securing permanent residency – at a huge financial cost – after moving to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the proposed policies be enacted, he fears his family would be separated.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said the man, in his thirties. “Who knows how this unfolds in the coming years.”
While in daily life, he has “no issues”, he has been alarmed by the increase of St George’s flags in his neighbourhood, a practice that has been widely adopted by the extremist groups and immigration opponents. In the future, though the household has no wish to leave, they may consider it if the unfriendliness continues.
“It’s strange that in a nation where immigrants are needed, nobody is promoting a positive story about immigration at all,” he added. “I just find the demonisation very peculiar and terrifying, long-term.”
