Tory MP sparks backlash after calling for legal migrants to ‘go home’ to make Britain ‘culturally coherent’

Katie Lam, a Home Office minister, has sparked backlash after saying in an interview that large numbers of people with legal status in the UK should have their right to stay withdrawn and “need to go home”.

“There are also a large number of people in this country who came here legally, but in effect shouldn’t have been able to do so. It’s not the fault of the individuals who came here, they just shouldn’t have been able to do so.

“They will also need to go home. What that will leave is a mostly but not entirely culturally coherent group of people,” she told The Sunday Times. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has been urged to condemn the comments, which have already been criticised by a slew of MPs.

Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey blasted the comments as “deeply concerning and unpatriotic  in a letter to Ms Badenoch.

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“People who have come to the United Kingdom legally, played by the rules and made it their home do not need to ‘go home’. This is their home,” he wrote. 

He added that Ms Lam’s suggestion of removing thousands of people who were in the UK legally “shows just how far your party has moved away from the fundamental values of decency, tolerance and respect for the rule of law that the vast majority of people in our country hold dear”.

Lib Dem MP Anna Sabine described Ms Lam’s remarks as “vile”. She wrote on X: “If Katie Lam is the future of the Tory Party then that says a lot about their current, self-destructive, Refom-lite direction.

The Lib Dems are now demanding that the Conservatives urgently clarify if Ms Lam’s position reflects that of the wider party’s.

Ms Lam has also sparked backlash among critics online, with many taking to X to blast the MP. 

Basit Mahmood, a Labour councillor, wrote on X: “Tory MP Katie Lam’s comments about how legally settled families should be deported to make us more “culturally coherent” are utterly disgraceful and show how far the Conservative Party has fallen.

“Far from being a part of law and order, it normalises the rhetoric of the far-right.”

Her position is similar to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK – which wants to abolish indefinite leave to remain (ILR), for which migrants can currently apply after five years, and force them to renew their visa every five years.

The remarks also comes after the Conservatives pledged to create a new “Removals Force” tasked with deporting 150,000 people a year as part of plans to end irregular migration to the UK.

Under the plans, announced at the Tory Party conference, the force would be given £1.6 billion and “sweeping new powers” including the use of facial recognition without warning to spot illegal immigrants.