Prominent UK legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a future party leader suggested that significant quantities of legally settled families must be removed from the country.
Controversial Statement on Residency Rights
The MP, a shadow Home Office minister and a Tory whip, remarked that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their permission to remain cancelled, to ensure the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Tory leader, the party head, later retreated from these comments last Thursday.
While Badenoch initially said the remarks were “broadly in line” with party policy, she later reverted to current rules that only withdraw permanent residency status if someone has committed a crime. Nevertheless, the statement has raised alarms for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and part of a larger political discourse.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In the past few months, leaders across various groups have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed proposals that were once considered fringe. Most recently, a Reform UK leader expressed dissatisfaction about “every advert” seemingly featuring “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the party’s leader, Nigel Farage, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for immigration to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK risked becoming an “nation of foreigners” without tougher immigration policies.
“It’s hard to believe that the ramifications of that phrase were not comprehended, and it was targeting a particular audience,” said Martin Forde KC, who has investigated claims of discrimination within the opposition party.
The barrister, whose parents emigrated from the West Indies, said the remarks were a “thinly disguised keep Britain white campaign”. The legal expert said the current political discourse 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 Forde. “It’s desperate to see Labour feeling the only answer to the rival party is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually talk about the benefits of immigration.
“The language has to change and has to be truthful.”
Public Sentiment and Extremist Movements
Support for Reform has increased in the surveys, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances are similar to extremist rallies from previous eras and fearful the UK is “regressing” as politicians focus on migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has acted for hundreds of affected individuals at the heart of the Windrush scandal, in which UK citizens from the Commonwealth residing in the UK legally were mistakenly categorized as illegal migrants.
McKenzie said her father, who emigrated to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the present debate. Recently, her daughter has asked whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Currently we see kids in their 20s and 30s who have got two 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 most political parties,” she added. “The tenets of this, the reach of it extend widely when you start talking about deporting and expelling people who are lawfully resident, and vast numbers of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
Individuals with permanent residency, or with spouses who hold this status, have shared that the new proposals floated by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and characterized the wider political debate as racist, frightening and hostile.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a dual British-Jordanian citizen residing in the city with his family, said the recent surge of the party in the polls had motivated him to get his British citizenship. For the past six years he has gone through the procedure of securing permanent residency – at a huge financial cost – after moving to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the proposed policies be enacted, he fears his family would be split up.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said the man, in his thirties. “It’s uncertain how this unfolds in the coming years.”
While day to day, he has “no issues”, Darwazeh has been concerned by the proliferation of national symbols in his neighbourhood, a practice that has been widely co-opted by the extremist groups and immigration opponents. In the future, though the household has no desire to leave, they may consider it if the unfriendliness persists.
“It’s strange that in a country where immigrants are required, no one’s actually selling a beneficial narrative about migration at all,” he remarked. “I just find the vilification very odd and terrifying, for the future.”
