Leading British legal professionals have issued warnings about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Tory lawmaker seen as a future party leader 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 legal status in the UK should have their right to stay 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 “broadly in line” with party policy, she later reverted to existing policy that only withdraw indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has broken the law. Nevertheless, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and part of a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Immigration Criticism
In the past few months, politicians across political parties have absorbed anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed policies that were once seen as extreme. Lately, a political party leader expressed dissatisfaction about “numerous advertisements” seemingly featuring “black and Asian people”, and in September, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the main route for migrants to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “island of strangers” without tougher immigration policies.
“I don’t accept 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 racism within Labour.
The barrister, whose family emigrated from the West Indies, said the remarks were a barely concealed keep Britain white campaign”. The legal expert said the current political discourse was an “absolute indictment” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still experience anxiety.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” added the lawyer. “It’s desperate to see the opposition feeling the sole solution to Reform is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually talk about the positives of migration.
“The language has to evolve and has to be truthful.”
National Mood and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has surged in the polls, and extremist demonstrations have attracted large crowds to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances are reminiscent of extremist rallies from decades past and concerned the UK is “going backwards” as elected officials target migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has acted for hundreds of victims at the centre of the Windrush scandal, in which Britons from the former empire living in the UK lawfully were mistakenly categorized as illegal migrants.
McKenzie said her father, who moved to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the current discourse. Recently, her daughter has asked whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Currently we see young people in their twenties and thirties 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-immigrant fervour is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for most political parties,” she continued. “The principles here, the tentacles of it extend widely when you start talking about removing and expelling people who are lawfully resident, and millions of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
People 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 insecure in the UK, and characterized the wider political debate as discriminatory, alarming and unwelcoming.
One individual, a person with dual nationality residing in the city with his wife and children, said the recent surge of the party in the polls had pushed him to get his UK passport. For the past six years he has gone through the procedure of securing ILR – at a significant expense – after relocating to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the suggested changes be implemented, he fears his family would be split up.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said Darwazeh, 37. “It’s uncertain how this plays out in two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no problems”, he has been concerned by the increase of national symbols in his area, a trend 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 consider it if the hostility persists.
“It’s strange that in a country where immigrants are needed, no one’s actually selling a positive story about migration at all,” he remarked. “I just find the vilification very peculiar and terrifying, long-term.”
