Leading British attorneys have issued warnings about a political “downward spiral”, after a Conservative MP seen as a potential leadership candidate proposed that significant quantities of lawfully resident households must be removed from the country.
Controversial Statement on Legal Status
The MP, a shadow Home Office minister and a party enforcer, remarked that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their right to stay revoked, to guarantee the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, later retreated from these comments last Thursday.
While the leader initially said the remarks were “broadly in line” with official stance, she later reverted to existing policy that only withdraw permanent residency status if someone has committed a crime. Nevertheless, the statement has raised alarms for many as a indication of “perilous periods” and part of a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In the past few months, leaders across political parties have adopted anti-immigration language and repeated policies that were once considered fringe. Lately, a political party leader complained about “every advert” seemingly including “black and Asian people”, and in September, the group’s head, Nigel Farage, pledged to abolish the main route for immigration to obtain 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 ramifications of that phrase were not fully understood, and it was appealing to a particular audience,” said Martin Forde KC, who has investigated claims of discrimination within Labour.
Forde, whose family migrated from the Caribbean, 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 generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still feel insecure.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” continued Forde. “It’s desperate to see the opposition feeling the sole solution to the rival party is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually talk about the benefits of immigration.
“The rhetoric has to change and has to be accurate.”
National Mood and Extremist Movements
Backing for the party has increased in the surveys, and extremist demonstrations have drawn thousands to London, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the circumstances are reminiscent of extremist rallies from decades past and fearful the UK is “going backwards” as politicians 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 Britons from the Commonwealth residing in the UK legally were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
The lawyer said her father, who emigrated to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the current discourse. Lately, her child has questioned whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Now we’re getting kids in their twenties and thirties who have got two generations ahead of them, born in Britain, experiencing insecurity,” said the attorney.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a acceptable political direction for most political parties,” she continued. “The tenets of this, the tentacles of it extend widely when you start talking about removing and removing people who are lawfully resident, and vast numbers of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
Individuals with permanent residency, or with partners who hold this status, have expressed that the new proposals floated by political figures have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as discriminatory, frightening and unwelcoming.
One individual, a dual British-Jordanian citizen living in Manchester with his wife and children, said the recent surge of the party in the surveys had pushed him to get his British citizenship. For the last several years he has gone through the procedure of securing ILR – at a huge financial cost – after moving to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the proposed policies be enacted, he worries his family would be split up.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said the man, 37. “It’s uncertain how this unfolds in two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no issues”, Darwazeh has been concerned by the increase of national symbols in his area, a practice that has been widely co-opted 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 nation where immigrants are required, no one’s actually selling a positive story about immigration at all,” he added. “I consider the demonisation very peculiar and frightening, for the future.”
