LABOUR must not be “queasy” about concerns over high immigration, the new shadow justice secretary has declared.
Shabana Mahmood said in the past her party has been too scared to address concerns over the impact high numbers can have on the NHS and housing.
Paul EdwardsShabana Mahmood MP Shadow Secretary of State for Justice.[/caption]
But she furiously hit out at Home Secretary Suella Braverman for saying a migration “hurricane” is set to hit Britain.
In her first interview as shadow justice secretary, Ms Mahmood also pleaded with Red Wall voters who deserted the party in 2019 to “give Labour a second look”.
Speaking on the eve of the Labour conference, she said: “I think of the Left more generally, we have sometimes not wanted to talk about some of the complications and difficulties around the immigration debate because it feels like you’re on the territory that those who want to divide our country are also on.
“I don’t think we should be queasy about that.
“I don’t want to give up a whole area of legitimate public concern across our country.”
She said Labour is finally “comfortable on this territory” – but refused to say that numbers should come down.
Immigration to the UK has hit a record 1.2 million people.
Net migration – the numbers coming here minus those leaving – has hit 606,000, according to the office for National Statistics.
At last week’s Tory party conference, Ms Braverman warned of a migration “hurricane that is coming” and accused her opponents of backing “open borders”.
Ms Mahmood branded the words “deliberately inflammatory” and “divisive”.
“I think she’s raising the spectre of a completely unrealistic set of numbers just to frighten people”, she said.
“Whether it is or actively racist, I’ll leave it to her own conscience to decide. Is it dog whistle politics? It’s certainly the lowest kind of politics.”
Trying to park her tanks on Tory lawns, she said “The Labour Party is the party of law and order.”
She said the criminal justice system has been brought “to its knees”
PASir Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner at Labour Party conference in Liverpool[/caption]
And she warned that “people have lost confidence in the police” in the wake of the Sarah Everard murder and other appalling scandals.
But Ms Mahmood was forced to deny she is soft on crime after she signed a controversial letter in 2020 expressing “grave concern” over plans to deport 50 foreign criminals to Jamaica.
Foreign criminals including violent thugs, drug dealers and a stalker carried out more crimes in Britain after the letter – which was also signed by Sir Keir – was sent.
She said: “That letter was calling on the government to complete its Windrush Lessons Learned review and to make sure that when we are deporting foreign offenders, we are in fact deporting foreign offenders.
“ And what we’re not doing is deporting people who are effectively citizens of our own country.”
She said she signed the letter because she had a constituent who had done two tours of duty in Afghanistan who was due to be deported.
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