Prominent UK legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Conservative MP seen as a future party leader proposed that large numbers of lawfully resident households must be deported.
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 cancelled, to guarantee the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Conservative 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 revoke permanent residency status if someone has committed a crime. However, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and belonging to a larger political discourse.
Escalating Pattern of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, leaders across political parties have absorbed anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed policies that were once seen as extreme. Lately, a political party leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly including “ethnic minorities”, and in September, the group’s head, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for migrants to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “nation of foreigners” without stricter border controls.
“It’s hard to believe that the ramifications of that statement were not comprehended, and it was targeting a particular audience,” said a leading barrister, who has investigated claims of racism within Labour.
Forde, whose parents migrated from the West Indies, said the remarks were a barely concealed racial purity campaign”. The leading barrister said the current political discourse was an “utter condemnation” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still feel insecure.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” added Forde. “It’s alarming to see Labour feeling the only answer to Reform is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually talk about the positives of migration.
“The language has to change and has to be truthful.”
Public Sentiment and Extremist Movements
Backing for the party has increased in the surveys, and far-right marches have drawn thousands to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the situation are similar to far-right marches from previous eras and fearful the UK is “regressing” as elected officials target migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has acted for hundreds of victims at the centre of the Windrush scandal, in which UK citizens from the Commonwealth living in the UK lawfully were classed wrongly as unauthorized immigrants.
The lawyer said her father, who moved to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the current discourse. Lately, her child has asked whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Now we’re getting young people in their twenties and thirties who have got multiple generations ahead of them, UK-born, experiencing insecurity,” said McKenzie.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for many groups,” she added. “The principles here, the tentacles of it spread so far when you start talking about deporting and expelling people who are legally in the country, and millions 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 shared that the new proposals suggested by political figures have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as racist, frightening and hostile.
One individual, a dual British-Jordanian citizen residing in the city with his family, said the growing support of Reform in the polls had pushed him to get his British citizenship. For the last several years he has gone through the procedure of obtaining permanent residency – at a significant expense – after moving 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 the man, in his thirties. “It’s uncertain how this plays out in two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no issues”, Darwazeh has been concerned by the proliferation of national symbols in his neighbourhood, a trend that has been widely adopted by the far-right and anti-immigration protesters. Long-term, though the family has no desire to leave, they may think about it if the hostility persists.
“I find it really odd that in a country where immigrants are required, nobody is promoting a positive story about migration at all,” he added. “I just find the vilification very peculiar and frightening, long-term.”
