Shabana Mahmood reveals she’s up for a scrap as she walks poisonous tightrope on migration
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood defended her controversial migration and asylum blueprint amid growing pressure from the left and right – with a dire warning about Nigel Farage
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is walking a toxic tightrope as she tries to reform the asylum and migration systems(Image: PA)
It’s long been said that becoming Home Secretary is the biggest poisoned chalice in British politics.
Shabana Mahmood will know all about that. She’s trying to navigate her way through a toxic storm, with poison being slung her way from every direction.
That a Labour government proposes forcibly deporting children, ripping up settlement rules and shredding the right to permanent refugee status shows how troubled the times we’re in are.
Failure on migration and asylum could hand the keys to No10 to Nigel Farage. A mis-step could lead to a humiliating Commons defeat by her own MPs.
READ MORE: Labour sets out migrant boat plan in bid to avoid ‘Nigel Farage nightmare’
But the Home Secretary is no wallflower. The fact that she chose to give a landmark speech to a left-leaning think-tank which previously savaged her plans shows she’s up for the scrap.
Ms Mahmood’s plans have horrified Labour backbenchers, human rights campaigners and – most importantly – asylum seekers and migrants themselves. The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), which hosted her, last month warned her proposals were unfair and would leave 300,000 children in limbo.
But her message to doubters was clear – hold your nose and get on board, or a Farage government will start sending refugees to their deaths.
To highlight what’s at stake, Ms Mahmood insisted the Government is fighting for the very existance of a humane asylum system and legal migration in this country. This is consistent with Labour values, she said, with too much abuse and too much unfairness resulting from the wave of arrivals under the Conservatives.
The immense cost, the pressure on services and the huge profits raked in by vile traffickers show the urgent need to act, Ms Mahmood insisted. “Restoring order and control at our border is not a betrayal of Labour values,” she declared. “It is the necessary condition for a Labour government to achieve anything it hopes to.”
But is forcibly be removing children – which the Home Office is consulting on – the answer? Is the Government punching down on legal migrants because of the sins of the Tories?
These were questions put to her in a tricky question and answer session that show the scale of the task ahead of her. With 100 backbench MPs calling for a rethink, this is a battle for the soul of the Labour Party. Will Ms Mahmood’s speech have won many of her doubters over?
The early signs aren’t great. Left-wing Nadia Whittome vented afterward: “We have a once-in-a-generation chance to replace a cruel, broken asylum system left behind by the Tories. Instead, the government is doubling down on dehumanising policies that will needlessly ruin lives.”
Ms Mahmood has her work cut out, then. But the alternative to success doesn’t bear thinking about.
