Prominent UK 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.
Divisive Remarks on Residency Rights
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 cancelled, to ensure the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, later retreated from these comments last Thursday.
While Badenoch initially said the remarks were “broadly in line” with party policy, she later returned to current rules that only revoke indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has committed a crime. However, the statement has raised alarms for many as a indication of “dangerous times” and belonging to a broader political conversation.
Escalating Pattern of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, leaders across various groups have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed proposals that were once seen as extreme. Lately, a political party leader complained about “every advert” seemingly including “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to eliminate the primary pathway for immigration to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “island of strangers” without stricter border controls.
“It’s hard to believe that the ramifications of that statement were not fully understood, and it was appealing to a specific group,” said a leading barrister, who has examined claims of discrimination within the opposition party.
Forde, whose family emigrated from the West Indies, 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 served the country, should still experience anxiety.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” added Forde. “It’s alarming to see Labour feeling the only answer to the rival party is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually talk about the positives of migration.
“The language has to change and has to be accurate.”
National Mood and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has increased in the surveys, and far-right marches have drawn thousands to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the situation are similar to extremist rallies from previous eras and concerned the UK is “going backwards” as politicians target migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has acted for hundreds of affected individuals at the heart of the residency controversy, in which UK citizens from the former empire living 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 deeply disturbed over the current discourse. Recently, her child has asked whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Now we’re getting kids in their twenties and thirties who have got multiple generations ahead of them, UK-born, feeling less than,” said the attorney.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for most political parties,” she continued. “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?”
Individual Consequences
Individuals with ILR status, or with partners who hold this status, have shared 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 racist, alarming and hostile.
One individual, a dual British-Jordanian citizen living in Manchester with his family, said the growing support of the party in the polls had motivated him to get his British citizenship. For the last several years he has gone through the process of securing ILR – at a significant expense – after relocating to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the suggested changes be implemented, he worries 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 unfolds in two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no problems”, he has been alarmed by the proliferation of national symbols 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 think about it if the unfriendliness persists.
“I find it really odd that in a country where migrants are required, nobody is promoting a beneficial narrative about immigration at all,” he remarked. “I just find the vilification very peculiar and frightening, for the future.”
