To Labour conference, where a number of conversations are being dominated by another political party: Reform UK. New Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has had her first few weeks in the job dominated by the small boats crisis and concerns about immigration – announcing yesterday that she will toughen up Labour’s migration policy. But that wasn’t all: the Labour politician didn’t hold back when it came to the subject of Nigel Farage…
Slamming the Reform UK leader as ‘worse than a racist’, Mahmood revealed during an interview with the Spectator’s Michael Gove that members of her family had been branded ‘f***ing P***s’ in recent weeks. But the Home Secretary didn’t quite agree with Sir Keir Starmer that Farage’s plans to scrap indefinite leave to remain were ‘racist’. Mahmood conceded that ‘technically’ the policy was not – before going on to fume that it was even more divisive because it was a deliberate ‘dog whistle’ to appeal to racist voters. Shots fired!
Her intervention comes after the Reform leader last week announced that his party’s immigration policies would include scrapping the right for migrants to permanently settle in the UK, prevent foreign nationals from claiming benefits and make it more difficult for people to get British citizenship. At the weekend, Starmer took to the airwaves to dub the indefinite leave to remain plan ‘racist’, while the policy has earned Farage some criticism for being out of step with British voters. But Mahmood has plans of her own to toughen up immigration policy – so Sir Keir may want to be a little more careful about where he aims his criticism in future…
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