Prominent UK attorneys have raised alarms about a political “race to the bottom”, 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 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 mostly “culturally coherent”. The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, later distanced herself from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While Badenoch initially said the remarks were “generally consistent” with official stance, she later returned to existing policy that only withdraw indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has broken the law. However, the proposal has sparked concern for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and part of a broader political conversation.
Escalating Pattern of Immigration Criticism
In the past few months, politicians across various groups have absorbed 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 September, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for migrants to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK risked becoming an “island of strangers” without tougher immigration policies.
“It’s hard to believe that the implications of that statement were not fully understood, and it was targeting a specific group,” said a leading barrister, who has investigated claims of racism within Labour.
Forde, whose parents migrated from the West Indies, said Lam’s comments were a barely concealed keep Britain white campaign”. The leading barrister 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 experience anxiety.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” added the lawyer. “It’s desperate to see the opposition feeling the only answer to the rival party is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually discuss the benefits of migration.
“The language has to change and has to be truthful.”
Public Sentiment and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has surged in the polls, and far-right marches have drawn thousands to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances are reminiscent of far-right marches from previous eras and concerned the UK is “regressing” as elected officials target migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has acted for hundreds of victims at the heart of the residency controversy, in which UK citizens from the Commonwealth living in the UK lawfully were mistakenly categorized as unauthorized immigrants.
McKenzie said her father, who moved to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the present debate. Lately, her daughter has asked whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Now we’re getting young people in their twenties and thirties who have got two generations ahead of them, UK-born, experiencing insecurity,” said the attorney.
“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 extend widely when you start talking about deporting and removing people who are legally in the country, and millions of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
Individuals with ILR status, or with partners who hold this status, have shared that the new proposals suggested by political figures have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and described the wider political debate as discriminatory, frightening and hostile.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a person with dual nationality residing in Manchester with his family, said the growing support of Reform in the surveys had pushed him to get his UK passport. For the past six years he has gone through the process of obtaining ILR – at a significant expense – after relocating to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the proposed policies be enacted, he fears his family would be separated.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said Darwazeh, 37. “Who knows how this plays out in two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no issues”, he has been concerned by the proliferation 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 wish to leave, they may consider it if the hostility continues.
“I find it really odd that in a country where immigrants are required, no one’s actually selling a beneficial narrative about migration at all,” he added. “I just find the demonisation very peculiar and frightening, for the future.”
