Prominent UK attorneys have issued warnings about a political “downward spiral”, after a Tory lawmaker seen as a future party leader suggested that significant quantities of legally settled families must be removed from the country.
Divisive Remarks on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister and a party enforcer, stated that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their right to stay revoked, 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 official stance, she later returned to current rules that only withdraw permanent residency status if someone has committed a crime. Nevertheless, the statement has sparked concern for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and part of a larger political discourse.
Escalating Pattern of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, leaders across various groups have adopted anti-immigration language and repeated proposals that were once seen as extreme. Lately, a political party leader expressed dissatisfaction about “every advert” seemingly including “black and Asian people”, and in last autumn, the group’s head, Nigel Farage, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for immigration to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK risked 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 targeting a particular audience,” said Martin Forde KC, who has examined claims of discrimination within Labour.
Forde, whose family emigrated from the Caribbean, said Lam’s comments were a barely concealed racial purity campaign”. The leading barrister said the current political discourse was an “absolute indictment” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had served the country, should still experience anxiety.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” added Forde. “It’s alarming to see the opposition feeling the only answer to Reform is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually discuss the benefits of immigration.
“The language has to evolve and has to be truthful.”
National Mood and Far-Right Activity
Backing for the party has increased in the polls, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances are reminiscent of far-right marches from decades past and fearful the UK is “going backwards” as politicians focus on migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous 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 legally 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 Caribbean passports.
“Currently we see young people 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-migrant sentiment is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for most political parties,” she continued. “The tenets of this, the reach of it extend widely when you start talking about removing and removing people who are lawfully resident, and millions of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
Individuals with permanent residency, or with spouses who hold this status, have shared that the recent policies suggested by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as racist, alarming and unwelcoming.
One individual, a person with dual nationality living in the city with his wife and children, said the recent surge of the party in the polls had motivated him to get his British citizenship. For the last several years he has gone through the procedure of securing ILR – at a significant expense – after relocating to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the suggested changes be implemented, he fears his family would be separated.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said the man, in his thirties. “Who knows how this unfolds in the coming years.”
While in daily life, he has “no issues”, he has been concerned by the increase of St George’s flags in his area, a practice that has been widely co-opted by the far-right and immigration opponents. Long-term, though the household has no wish to leave, they may consider it if the unfriendliness persists.
“It’s strange that in a country where migrants are needed, no one’s actually selling a positive story about migration at all,” he remarked. “I consider the vilification very odd and terrifying, for the future.”
