Prominent British legal professionals have issued warnings about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Conservative MP seen as a potential leadership candidate proposed that large numbers of lawfully resident households must be deported.
Controversial Statement on Residency Rights
The MP, a shadow Home Office minister and a Tory whip, stated that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their permission to remain revoked, to guarantee the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Tory leader, the party head, later distanced herself from these comments recently.
While Badenoch initially said the statement were “generally consistent” with official stance, she later reverted to current rules that only withdraw permanent residency status if someone has committed a crime. Nevertheless, the statement has sparked concern for many as a signal of “perilous periods” and belonging to a larger political discourse.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, leaders across political parties have adopted anti-immigration language and repeated proposals that were once seen as extreme. Lately, a political party leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly featuring “black and Asian people”, and in September, the party’s leader, Nigel Farage, pledged to eliminate the main route for migrants to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “nation of foreigners” without stricter border controls.
“I don’t accept that the implications of that statement were not fully understood, and it was appealing to a specific group,” said Martin Forde KC, who has investigated claims of racism within Labour.
Forde, whose family migrated from the Caribbean, said the remarks were a “thinly disguised racial purity campaign”. The leading barrister said the current political discourse was an “absolute indictment” that someone like himself, from generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still feel insecure.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” continued the lawyer. “It’s alarming to see Labour feeling the sole solution to the rival party is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually discuss the positives of immigration.
“The rhetoric has to change and has to be truthful.”
National Mood and Extremist Movements
Support for Reform has increased in the surveys, and extremist demonstrations have attracted large crowds to the capital, leaving many British people of colour feeling the situation are reminiscent of far-right marches from decades past and concerned the UK is “going backwards” as elected officials focus on migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of victims at the heart of the Windrush scandal, in which UK citizens from the Commonwealth living in the UK legally were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
McKenzie said her father, who emigrated to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the present debate. Recently, her daughter 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-immigrant fervour is being seen as a acceptable political direction for most political parties,” she continued. “The tenets of this, the reach of it extend widely when you start talking about removing and removing people who are legally in the country, and millions of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
Individuals with ILR status, or with spouses who hold this status, have expressed that the recent policies floated by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and characterized the broader political anti-migrant discourse as discriminatory, alarming and unwelcoming.
One individual, a dual British-Jordanian citizen residing in Manchester with his family, said the recent surge of the party in the polls had pushed him to get his UK passport. For the last several years he has gone through the process of securing permanent residency – at a huge financial cost – after relocating to the UK on a spousal visa. 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 Darwazeh, in his thirties. “Who knows how this unfolds in two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no issues”, he has been concerned by the proliferation of national symbols in his area, a trend that has been widely adopted by the extremist groups 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, nobody is promoting a positive story about immigration at all,” he added. “I consider the demonisation very peculiar and terrifying, for the future.”
