'Tories echo Idi Amin era with deportation calls'

Admitting the Ugandan Asians expelled by Idi Amin remains the bravest act of a modern British government under pressure over immigration.

Idi Amin accused the expelled Asians of retaining a primary loyalty to Britain. Enoch Powell said their real home was India. Conservative prime minister Edward Heath had sacked Powell over the “racialist” tone of his 1968 ‘rivers of blood’ speech, but the government had ended Commonwealth free movement in 1971. So, Powell denounced as a ‘betrayal’ the government’s decision to recognise the British overseas passports of those thrown out.

It was a principled but unpopular decision in 1972. Gallup found that a third of public did support it. But modern Conservatives have been proud of the Ugandan Asian contribution - celebrated in Leicester and Buckingham Palace. Even as Tory politicians Priti Patel and Rishi Sunak struggled with the polarised politics of asylum, they could draw on their family experience to exemplify how Britain can gain from immigration and integration, too.

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch’s own British journey reflects that too.

But the Conservative Party of 2025 wants to talk less about who we let in and much more about who to kick out. The phrase ‘Enoch was right’ is still just about avoided - but the party wants to position itself as a champion of mass deportations like never before.

Only last week did most of Westminster wake up to the precedented scale and scope of Deportation Bill tabled by shadow home secretary Chris Philp back in May, though the Tory frontbencher had accused Reform leader Nigel Farage of ‘copying our homework’ in his own controversial deportation plans this summer. The Conservatives and Reform both proposed that Britain should do something no democratic government has ever attempted since Idi Amin’s dictatorship: to strip migrants with permanent residence of legal status and deport them.

No mainstream politician proposed that during the historic immigration change of 1971, 1981 or 2016. When free movement ended, the new rules would apply to new arrivals. Europeans already here would invited to feel at home. The Tory bill of 2025 broke that principle - making it more in the spirit of Idi Amin than Margaret Thatcher. Even Powell said his campaign for mass remigration could only be voluntary for those who came under previous rules. Tory rising star Katie Lam wants to go further than Powell did, telling the Commons there was a ‘sacred duty’ to be fair to British citizens alone - not to extend fair treatment to foreign nationals too.

Oppositions rarely try to legislate. This bill was political theatre. Philp argued the Conservatives could grip the detail, while Farage’s “sloppy amateurism” would undermine immigration control. The Tory bill has fallen apart under scrutiny, marrying intentional harshness with sloppy incompetence. Its aim was to revoke indefinite leave to remain (ILR) from anybody whose income ever drops below £38,700 or who ever claims any state support - deporting around 400,000 people who had permanent status. The bill wants to kick out everybody who arrived under Tory former prime minister Boris Johnson not in the top half of the income distribution - and to do it retrospectively too for anybody who gets status in this parliament.

Badenoch’s office did not realise their bill would deport non-citizens who became eligible for a state pension. The bill exempts Afghans and Ukrainians - but as drafted, would kick vulnerable Syrian refugees out. It is designed to prevent any future refugee getting ILR or UK citizenship. The bill proposes a future immigration cap in its crudest form: cancelling all further visas once the cap is hit. No international student securing a UK university place could know if the visa would be honoured once it was time to board the flight.

The opposition has the headache of how far to defend, amend or withdraw the bill entirely. Shadow communities secretary James Cleverly may win his argument against retrospective deportations of those with leave to remain already.

What happens to post-2019 arrivals may be trickier. The largest group of potential deportees is from India. The Commonwealth franchise means Indian migrants can vote in a general election in which their deportation is on the ballot paper.

This curious episode of the mass deportation plan that nobody noticed offers unflattering insights into our political culture. During its first year in office, Labour seemed too timid to challenge the right. It has been galvanised into a bolder challenge to racism now - by the spectre of Tommy Robinson, and progressive challenges on its left. The vaulting ambition of Lam’s future leadership bid finally got the issue noticed. The language of deporting three million people for a ‘more but not entirely culturally coherent’ sounded like a call for mass deportations for a whiter Britain. The question of how far ‘Enoch was right’ seems back in fashion on the right. That may misread what could seem fair on migration control and integration in the Britain that we have become.

Sunder Katwala is the director of thinktank British Future and the author of the book How to Be a Patriot: The must-read book on British national identity and immigration.