Leading UK attorneys have issued warnings about a political “downward spiral”, after a Conservative MP seen as a potential leadership candidate suggested that large numbers of lawfully resident households must be removed from the country.
Controversial Statement 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 right to stay revoked, to guarantee the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Conservative leader, the party head, later distanced herself from these comments last Thursday.
While the leader initially said the remarks were “broadly in line” with official stance, she later returned to existing policy that only withdraw indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has committed a crime. However, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and part of a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, leaders across various groups have absorbed anti-migrant rhetoric and repeated policies that were once seen as extreme. Lately, a political party leader complained about “every advert” seemingly including “black and Asian people”, and in September, the group’s head, the figurehead, pledged to eliminate the primary pathway for migrants to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK risked becoming an “nation of foreigners” without tougher immigration policies.
“I don’t accept that the ramifications of that statement were not fully understood, and it was appealing to a particular audience,” said Martin Forde KC, who has investigated claims of discrimination within the opposition party.
Forde, whose parents emigrated from the West Indies, said the remarks were a “thinly disguised racial purity campaign”. The legal expert said the present political debate was an “absolute indictment” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still feel insecure.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” continued the lawyer. “It’s desperate to see Labour feeling the only answer to the rival party is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually discuss the positives of migration.
“The language has to change and has to be accurate.”
National Mood and Extremist Movements
Backing for the party has increased in the surveys, and far-right marches have drawn thousands to the capital, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances are similar to extremist rallies from decades past and concerned the UK is “regressing” as politicians focus on migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has represented hundreds of victims at the centre of the Windrush scandal, in which UK citizens from the Commonwealth residing in the UK lawfully were mistakenly categorized as unauthorized immigrants.
The lawyer said her father, who emigrated 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.
“Currently we see kids in their twenties and thirties who have got two generations ahead of them, born in Britain, experiencing insecurity,” said McKenzie.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a acceptable political direction for many groups,” she continued. “The tenets of this, the tentacles 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?”
Personal Impact
Individuals with ILR status, or with spouses who hold this status, have shared that the recent policies suggested by political figures have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and described the wider political debate as discriminatory, alarming and unwelcoming.
One individual, a person with dual nationality residing in Manchester with his family, said the growing support of the party in the surveys had motivated him to get his UK passport. For the last several years he has gone through the process of obtaining ILR – at a huge financial cost – after moving to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the proposed policies be implemented, he worries his family would be separated.
“It’s easy 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 issues”, he has been alarmed by the increase of national symbols in his neighbourhood, a practice that has been widely adopted by the extremist groups and anti-immigration protesters. Long-term, though the family has no desire to leave, they may think about it if the unfriendliness continues.
“It’s strange that in a nation where immigrants are required, no one’s actually selling a beneficial narrative about immigration at all,” he remarked. “I consider the vilification very odd and frightening, for the future.”
