Shabana Mahmood wasn’t given long in her new gig before facing the media. She became Home Secretary on Friday afternoon, after former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner resigned over an ethics probe into her tax affairs, and this morning set out her stall on immigration. Positioning herself as a ‘whatever it takes’ minister, Mahmood says she is prepared to suspend visas for workers coming to the UK from nations that will not enter into returns deals – bringing Labour into closer alignment with the Conservatives and Reform on its immigration policy.
Mahmood promised she would go ‘further and faster’ than her predecessor Yvette Cooper on the small boats crisis, adding that she was ‘not the sort of person who hangs around’. She has been praised in the past by colleagues for being an effective politician, making tough calls on prisons as justice secretary and is respected by those on the right. Former Home Office ministers Diana Johnson and Angela Eagle have been moved out of the department and replaced by Sarah Jones and Mike Tapp (among others) whose rhetoric on immigration has been lauded by Labour’s critics.
Mahmood is a proponent of using identification cards to tackle migration and said the government would consider plans to change the way ECHR is implemented in the UK – although she has stopped short of saying she would leave it entirely. But while Mahmood’s name has come up in conversations about filling the position of Labour deputy leader, she today ruled out running for the role. ‘I’m the Home Secretary,’ she told reporters. ‘That is my job, and my top priority is securing our borders.’ Her appointment is a statement of intent from the Labour leadership, which says the government’s top three priorities are economic growth, improving public services and tackling immigration.
While a number of right-leaning MPs have been moved into government ahead of their more centrist colleagues, Ed Miliband held on to his role as Net Zero Secretary after pushing back against Starmer’s wish to move him to Rayner’s old brief at housing.
The reshuffle has also left an unhappy cohort of new, ambitious MPs who are resentful at having missed out on promotion this time around, while the deputy leadership contest could threaten public rifts between the right and left of Labour. Starmer and his chief of staff Morgan McSweeney may have used Rayner’s resignation to their advantage in last week’s reshuffle, but there remain some headaches on the horizon for the Prime Minister.
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