In her uncompromising new proposals on dealing with Britain’s mass-migration crisis, Shabana Mahmood has been accused this week of ‘stoking division’ in the House of Commons.
Responding robustly, the Home Secretary shocked MPs by saying she was ‘regularly called a “f***ing P**i” and told to go back home’. But I, for one, was not in the least bit surprised.
The truth is that the virulent racism and anti-migrant sentiment that should have been put to bed in this country following the awful days of the 1980s race riots are making an unwelcome return.
And while it may be a big thing for the Home Secretary to come out and utter those words in Parliament, I am glad that she has finally said the unsayable. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it is a watershed moment.
Like Ms Mahmood – who on Thursday announced that some migrants will have to wait up to 30 years to gain settled status in the UK under a new immigration ‘crackdown’, I recognise the severity of the problem. Unless we sort out the dysfunctional nightmare of legal and illegal migration, then the issue could trigger a complete breakdown in race relations.
Of course, the irony here is that it has taken Ms Mahmood – the child of Pakistani Muslim migrants – to point out this grave but obvious threat.
As someone of Muslim heritage – my mother was born and raised in Bangladesh – I come from a not dissimilar background to the Home Secretary.
And the fears for our nation’s future run deep in my own hometown of Luton. I have relatives and family friends there, first-generation migrants from countries in Asia and Africa, who think Britain is being taken for a ride by migrants – turning neighbour against neighbour in the process.
The Home Secretary shocked MPs by saying she was ‘regularly called a “f***ing P**i” and told to go back home’. But I, for one, was not in the least bit surprised
They cannot believe that more isn’t being done to protect our borders and they fear the consequences for community relations if this unfettered immigration continues.
Like others in wider British society, they are increasingly of the view that the difference between illegal economic migrants (those looking for a better life in a new country) and genuine refugees (people fleeing the immediate threat of violence and persecution) is becoming more blurred by the day.
In our concern to provide a safe haven for the latter, we are clearly being overly generous to the former. New arrivals are routinely put up in hotels and given immediate access to a wide range of benefits such as already overstretched GP and dental services.
Matters aren’t helped by the fact that many are accommodated in some of the poorest towns and cities in the UK, places where many people have never been lucky enough to stay in a four-star hotel for even a single night – let alone for months or years on end at the expense of the taxpayer.
In such a context, the sight of young single men pacing the grounds of a smart local hotel is bound to stoke tensions.
And it doesn’t take much to spark a riot. Violent unrest erupted outside the Suites Hotel in Knowsley, Merseyside, in February 2023 after misinformation spread online that there were sex offenders and ISIS members among the young male asylum seekers housed there.
An initially peaceful demonstration escalated, with protesters throwing missiles, setting a police van on fire, and damaging vehicles and police equipment.
More recently, we have seen violent demonstrations outside the Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex, after one of its male migrant guests was arrested for sexual offences and later jailed.
But moving migrants from hotels to houses in multiple occupation (HMOs) is fraught with pitfalls, too. In areas where it is often difficult for people to get to the top of the council housing ladder, feelings run high when locals see illegal migrants enjoying state-funded accommodation in their own communities.
You don’t have to take my word for it. The Policy Exchange
think tank’s recent report on the small-boats emergency revealed that the country’s most deprived areas have been treated as asylum-seeker dumping grounds for decades.
As a result, growing numbers of ordinary Britons are getting angry and frustrated. They feel neglected and marginalised. And make no mistake, these feelings are shared right across the spectrum.
As someone of Muslim heritage I come from a not dissimilar background to the Home Secretary. And the fears for our nation’s future run deep in my own hometown of Luton, writes Dr Rakib Ehsan
It is a huge myth to suggest that ethnic-minority communities hold universally liberal views when it comes to immigration and asylum. On the contrary, the desire for more restrictive immigration policies is anything but the preserve of the white British majority.
According to a new Ipsos poll, commissioned by ITV, 45 per cent of black respondents believe that immigration is too high. That figure rises to 50 per cent among people of Asian origin.
None of this should come as a surprise. Following the 2022 riots in Leicester (primarily between Hindu and Muslim male youths), established first-generation migrants blamed relatively new arrivals from South Asia – languishing in low-paid jobs and overcrowded housing in eastern parts of the city – for a groundswell of anti-social behaviour that culminated in large-scale disorder.
It should also be remembered that vast swathes of the black and Asian populations know Britain for the safe, welcoming and wonderful place it is.
But they are also acutely aware that, if a breakdown in race relations and community cohesion is triggered by the broken asylum system, then they will be the ones bearing the brunt of the backlash in terms of arbitrary prejudice and racism.
Unfortunately, Britain’s reputation for being a soft touch for migrants is being perpetuated by woke politicians and misguided organisations such as Amnesty International.
The latter described the Home Secretary’s ‘crackdown’ on immigration and asylum as ‘cruel, divisive and fundamentally out of step with basic decency’ – and accused her of ‘bowing to anti-immigrant, anti-rights [sic] politics’.
Yet it made no mention of the rights of millions of hard-working British taxpayers, many of
them – like my family – from ethnic minorities, who are anxious about how a dysfunctional migration system can destabilise society.
This blindness to perfectly legitimate concerns is everywhere among the open-borders lobby.
Perhaps the most egregious example of politically-motivated posturing came when ultra-Left MP Zarah Sultana ludicrously branded Ms Mahmood’s initiatives as ‘straight out of the fascist playbook’.
But Liberal Democrat frontbencher Max Wilkinson ran her a close second when he described the Government’s plans to require asylum seekers to contribute to the taxpayer’s costs of looking after them as ‘cruel, state-sponsored robbery’.
Indeed, it was his intervention that prompted Ms Mahmood to reply with the words that captured the public imagination.
‘I wish I had the privilege of walking around this country and not seeing the division that the issue of migration and the asylum system is creating,’ she said. ‘Unfortunately, I am the one who is regularly called a “f***ing P**i” and told to go back home.’
Britain has become an El Dorado for illegal migrants. If we don’t get to grips with this problem, our achievement in creating a successful multi-racial democracy will be fatally undermined.
Shabana Mahmood should be applauded for pointing this out, not pilloried by naive members of the metropolitan elite who have never walked in her shoes.
Dr Rakib Ehsan is a researcher on migration.
