Home Secretary Reveals Racist Abuse Over Immigration Policy

Shabana Mahmood has revealed the racist abuse she receives as a woman of Pakistani origin as she defended her controversial plans to slash immigration.

The home secretary said she is “regularly called a fucking Paki and told to go back home” and insisted her proposals would help to bring the country together.

She made her comments in response to Lib Dem home affairs spokesman Max Wilkinson, who criticised Mahmood’s claim the UK is “being torn apart” by rising levels of illegal immigration.

“Acknowledging the challenges facing our nation is one thing, but stoking division by using immoderate language is quite another,” Wilkinson said.

Mahmood, whose parents emigrated to the UK from Pakistan, told him: “I wish I had the privilege of walking around this country and not seeing the division that the issue of migration and asylum system is creating across this country.

“Unlike him, unfortunately, I am the one that is regularly called a fucking 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.

“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.”

It had earlier been revealed that children could be deported as part of Mahmood’s proposals.

A 33-page document published by the Home Office setting out the government’s plans said current rules create “perverse incentives” to put under-18s on small boats.

That is because the UK does not “prioritise” the deportation of families, even if their asylum claims have been rejected.

In future, those families will be offered money to go back to their home countries, and if that fails, officials will “escalate to an enforced return”.

The Home Office also confirmed plans to make refugee status temporary, with those given asylum in the UK being deported back to their home country once it is deemed to be safe.

The length of time it takes to gain permanent residence in Britain will be quadrupled five to 20 years as ministers try to reduce the so-called “pull factors” which they say make the UK so attractive to immigrants.

Human rights law will also be overhauled to prevent it from being used to frustrate deportations.

Mahmood told the Commons: “The pace and scale of change has destabilised communities, it is making our country a more divided place.

“There will never be a justification for the violence and racism of a minority, but if we fail to deal with this crisis, we will draw more people down a path that starts with anger and ends in hatred.

“I have no doubt about who we really are in this country.

“We are open, tolerant and generous, but the public rightly expects that we can determine who enters this country and who must leave.”