Home Secretary hits back at Sultana’s ‘fascist’ asylum policy claim as ‘beneath contempt’

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has described comments from far-left MP  Zarah Sultana as “beneath contempt” as she attempted to liken the government’s new asylum plans to policies “straight out of the fascist playbook.”

In a stinging rebuke to the Coventry South MP, Mahmood also took issue with Sultana’s claim that in her statement to the House the minister “describes herself as a child of immigrants.”

The Home Secretary replied sternly,”I’m just going to clarify a point.

“She says I ‘describe myself as the child of immigrants’ – it’s not a description, it’s a statement of fact. Everything else she said is beneath contempt.”

In a sign of continued tensions within new left-wing Your Party, Sultana sat slightly apart from Jeremy Corbyn during Monday’s debate, while the Independent pro-Gaza MPs sat further away from her.

Sultana and other left-wing MPs referenced a social media post by far-right activist Tommy Robinson, who appeared to support the government’s proposals.

Mahmood dismissed Robinson’s relevance, stating, “Please don’t keep repeating the name of a man who doesn’t even think I’m English. I find that very offensive, and I would just ask everyone to refrain from doing so.”

In a performance widely praised by Westminster commentators, Mahmood outlined what she called the biggest overhaul of UK asylum laws in 40 years.

She also forcefully rebutted criticisms from MPs including Jeremy Corbyn, Richard Burgon, Green MP Carla Denyer, and the Liberal Democrats.

The Home Secretary also said the UK broken asylum system needed urgently fixing, as she dismissed the pro-Gaza MP Iqbal Mohamed’s attempt to blame rising asylum claims on Israel’s war in Gaza against Hamas.

“That is not relevent for what we are discussing today,” she added.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch welcomed the measures as “baby steps, but positive,” but argued that without leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the plan is “doomed to fail.”

Reform UK’s Danny Kruger claimed the policies were a watered-down version of his party’s stance and invited Mahmood to join Reform UK, to which she retorted, “Over my dead body.”

Addressing claims by the Liberal Democrats home affairs spokesman Max Wilkinson that she is “stoking division,” Mahmood revealed she has regularly been subjected to racist abuse, saying, “I am the one that is regularly called a ‘f****** Paki’ and told to go back home. It is I who knows, through my personal experience and that of my constituents, just how divisive the issue of asylum has become in our country.”

Her language drew a rebuke from Caroline Nokes, the deputy speaker, to which Mahmood replied that she was “merely reflecting the truth of words used to me”.

Mahmood further defended her policies, stating, “This system is broken, and it is incumbent on all Members of Parliament to acknowledge how badly broken the system is and to make it a moral mission to fix this system so that it stops creating the division that we all see.”

Lord Glasman,  a long-time supporter of Mahmood, heaped praise on her Commons performance.

The Blue Labour founder and Jewish Labour peer said:”Shabana Mahmood is the person I respect most in all British politics. She loves God, Judaism and Jews because she is a religious Muslim. And I love her for that.”

Key measures in the government’s asylum plans included reducing refugees’ initial right to stay in the UK from five years to a 30-month “core protection” period, renewable only if return is unsafe.

Requiring refugees to spend 20 years in the UK before applying for settled status, up from five years, and emoving the automatic right to family reunion under core protection.

It is also planned to end guaranteed housing and weekly allowances for asylum seekers, with those able to work or with assets must contribute to their costs.

And exploring the possibility of returning some Syrians without legal right to remain, following the collapse of Assad’s regime.

After Green MP Carla Denyer accused Mahmood of trying to “out-Reform Reform” and boosting a “far-right narrative”, Mahmood replied by saying the party’s MPs are “hypocrites” for their comments in the Commons, but then “opposing accommodation in their own constituencies”.

Corbyn accused Mahmood of trying “to appease ghastly right-wing racist forces”, but she responded by saying he needed to do more reading to learn exactly what policies the Home Office were proposing.

Responding to claims from Labour’s Sarah Owen that the government would seize refugees’ jewellery at the border, Mahmood clarified: “We are not taking jewellery at the border. The policy targets those with significant assets who can afford expensive cars, not those with personal belongings.”

Labour MP Catherine West, citing concerns from the pro-asylum communal group HIAS+JCORE about links between asylum seekers and homelessness, was told by Mahmood that those with failed claims should leave the UK, adding, “We make financial packages available for people to leave the country, and that will always be the case.”