Let’s stop the nonsense and stop pretending. Shabana Mahmood came out yesterday with her so-called “tough” new asylum stance, and the media lapdogs are already trying to paint her as some iron-fisted Home Secretary ready to restore order.
Please give me a break. This isn’t a woman preparing to take on the crisis. This is a woman buying time, while the boats keep coming, while the hotels keep filling, and while the British wake up almost daily to another horrific crime, often sexual, and committed by men who shouldn’t have been here in the first place.
Now, don’t get me wrong. On the surface, some of what she said sounds good. She wants to crack down on countries that refuse to take back their criminals.
She named Angola, Namibia and the Democratic Republic of Congo - so far, so good. The kind of thing Labour voters pretend they hate, but secretly know is necessary.
But here’s the problem: she won’t get any of this through her own party. Labour MPs will tear this stuff to pieces. Half of them can’t even bring themselves to say the words “illegal immigration”, let alone tighten visas or deport foreign offenders.
Mahmood can stand at a podium and thump her chest all she likes, but Labour’s hard left faction will block her every step. They always do.
So what are we left with?
Nothing but rhetoric.
A scripted performance designed to look like action, all while thousands more cross the Channel, day after day, in record numbers.
We have hotels bursting, communities stretched to breaking point, and a crime wave the political class refuses to acknowledge, especially when the perpetrators are “asylum seekers” - the sacred protected class of modern British politics.
But here’s the most telling part of yesterday's announcement. She spoke about cracking down on countries that don’t take their criminals back. She listed four - fine, but there was one glaring omission, Pakistan.
And that omission wasn’t an accident.
Pakistan has repeatedly refused to take back Pakistani nationals involved in grooming gangs, sexual exploitation, and other serious crimes. This isn’t speculation; this is well documented.
Successive Home Secretaries have battled with them over it. So why didn’t Mahmood include Pakistan on her list?
I have a theory.
Votes.
Shabana Mahmood's visa ban has one glaring omission. Ducking this country exposes her real plan - Adam Brooks | Getty Images
Her constituency has many of Pakistani heritage. She knows it and Labour knows it. She’s terrified of losing that bloc. So national interest takes a back seat to sectarian politics, yet again.
We’ve seen it for years…certain MPs bending over backwards to avoid upsetting one influential voting group while the rest of the country pays the price.
Today, Mahmood showed us exactly who she serves, and it isn’t Britain.
If she were serious, Pakistan would’ve been the first name out of her mouth, but she ducked it and she swerved it. She basically hid from it because she knew the backlash she’d face on her own doorstep.
This is the truth about Labour’s so-called immigration “crackdown”.
They'll talk tough for the cameras, but they won’t act tough where it actually matters. The Prime Minister is a human rights lawyer.
Mahmood can posture all she likes, but the British people are not fools. We know what real action looks like, and we know political theatre when we see it.
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