Did the Home Sec use a racial slur to justify government policy?

0:02Raja Krishnamoorthi:This is a Global Player original podcast. Yesterday in the House of Commons, the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood unveiled her proposals for tackling illegal immigration. She was challenged on this and this was her response. I have to say to the Honourable Gentleman, 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.

0:29Shabana Mahmood:Unlike him, unfortunately, I am the one that is regularly called a fucking p***er 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. That was quite a drop your spoon moment in the House of Commons. And it was reflected in the faces around her who simply hadn't heard that kind of language used before. But what was the argument the Home Secretary was trying to make? That the way to end racist language is by changing the policy? Or the way to end racist language is to stop the racists? Welcome to The News Agents.

1:17Raja Krishnamoorthi:The News Agents. It's John. It's Emily. It's Lewis. And yesterday, Shabana Mahmood came to Parliament, Although a lot had been unveiled about what her revised proposals were to clamp down on illegal immigration, it was set out in full yesterday. And there was more to it than just the kind of early kind of glimpses of what she had to say, particularly about whether families could face deportation if they had entered the country illegally and their asylum requests had been turned down. And she said there was a scam that needed to end whereby you just bring a child over and then for family reasons, you say you can't do anything about it.

1:58Raja Krishnamoorthi:And it met opposition. And as you heard in our introduction, she fired back very forcefully to a Liberal Democrat who was kind of saying, well, why are you doing this?

2:08Shabana Mahmood:Yeah, the Liberal Democrat was Max Wilkinson, Lib Dem spokesman, and he had accused her of stoking division by immoderate language. and it was after she'd said that the country was being torn apart by the issue of immigration and it was on a particular part of the policy this question of whether immigrants, asylum seekers would have jewellery goods removed from them in order to pay for their staying in the UK and Max Wilkinson had accused Shabhan Mahmood of, with this jewellery policy, state-sponsored robbery So, I mean, not inflammatory language from him or anything. And I think that was when she lost the plot.

2:52Shabana Mahmood:She'd been kept waiting two hours. The Speaker hadn't liked the fact that she'd kind of briefed a lot of it out. She'd had ministers on the airwaves in the morning. So by the time it got to the Commons, everyone kind of knew what she was going to say. And so he was sort of drumming his fingers, keeping her waiting two hours. Maybe that sort of contributed to the passion in the Chamber, let's say. And then she went for it. And that was her response.

3:12Raja Krishnamoorthi:I think this is actually one of the most extraordinary, maybe even shocking moments on the floor of the House of Commons that we've seen for a very long time. I mean, to take a step back, first of all, obviously very unusual to have female Muslim Home Secretary. And then to use those words and to use that language, whether it was deliberate or not, was clearly in the moment designed to arrest. And it was designed to be evocative. And it was. And there'll be a lot of people in the country, by the way, who have a problem, even with an ethnic minority woman like Shibana Mahmood, using that language, because there is an argument that we are moving into a world where, and we see it all the time, when words and terms and ideas that were once beyond the political pale have been and are being legitimised and reintroduced into the public discourse kind of day after day after day.

4:02Raja Krishnamoorthi:But clearly what Moove was, I think, trying to do was to see off at the pass in a way that probably only she can do all of the substantial concern that there is on parts of the Labour benches, that this is legitimising the far right or that it is playing into a far right agenda. And her argument is to say, no one needs to tell me about the racism or about the horror and toxin of the far right, because I experience it every single day. And that is why I am proposing what I'm proposing, because it will drain if we can get a handle on this. And this is the argument we can discuss. But if we can get a handle on this, we will drain that toxin from the system.

4:41Shabana Mahmood:And we should maybe just take our listeners, our audience into the group chat that we were having minutes after she said that. because you posted in the group and you said, wow, this is a bit of a moment. Well, I mean, in all the years of covering the House of Commons,

4:56Raja Krishnamoorthi:I've never heard anything like it.

4:58Shabana Mahmood:Yeah. And then the discussion turned into something more subtle, which was, wait, is she blaming the language, the racist language used against her on immigrants rather than on the racists that use the language? And so that then started to become the basis for, I guess, what our discussion is today, which is, is she emboldening people who use racist language like that by saying, I hear you, I'm going to do something about it? Or is she trying to say, we have to get ahead of racist language, we have to get ahead of racists by putting an end to the things that they're most concerned about?

5:37Raja Krishnamoorthi:So I thought she was very clear minded. I mean, it was passionate, but she was very clear minded about the arguments. And unlike a lot of Labour ministers that we have spoken about on this podcast where you kind of think they don't really believe in anything. She was passionate about it and is determined to fight for this because I think she thinks it is the best way of seeing off reform that people are rightly pissed off in this country about kind of flows of illegal immigrants coming across the channel. And she senses that is putting poisoning the well of our politics, that extremism is taking route in a way that it's never done before.

6:14Raja Krishnamoorthi:And therefore, the only way to address it is to lean into some of the concerns. And better that a Labour Home Secretary is responsible for implementing these changes than someone from the far right who is going to do it in a kind of much more brutal, thoughtless way. And I think that that is the pitch where she's erecting her tent. I saw a Labour MP this morning saying that what she was doing was appeasing the electorate. And you thought, well, yeah. Yeah, that's what politicians do. They've got to seek re-election. And so if you are appeasing the electorate, actually being concerned about what the electorate want, what's wrong with that?

6:51Raja Krishnamoorthi:I think I have a problem with that.

6:52Shabana Mahmood:I mean, I'm going to try and replace... This is her lived experience, and we get that this is coming from a place where she is talking about stuff that's happened to her. But if I replaced what she said with a phrase like, fucking Jews, fucking y**s, I don't think I'd want the government to be saying, oh, if people are saying things like that, we've really got to sort out what's happening. You know, are there too many Jews in the country or have we been careless in the way we've, you know, dealt with Jews or whether we've sort of prioritised Jewish needs or whatever? I'd be like, get on top of that.

7:23Shabana Mahmood:That sounds anti-Semitic to me. That sounds bloody awful, right?

7:27Raja Krishnamoorthi:So why would this be different? Well, because I think the answer to that is that she's, I think she was trying to shock and she did. I think that that was part of it. And I think that her lived experience does matter. And if people are thinking it's OK to say this sort of thing now, then she wants that stopped. But to my experience, you wouldn't say you wouldn't say that's how we stop people being anti-Semitic, right? No, but she's saying you've got to address the problem. And the reason that anti-Semitism or Islamophobia is growing is because of the growing numbers of people who are entering the country uncontrolled.

8:00Raja Krishnamoorthi:And unless you get a grip on that, you're not going to get a grip on the language being used by those on the far right who want to stoke this division. I think it's sort of possible to believe that, look, the far right and people like that are not going to stop calling Shabana Mahmoud and people like Shabana Mahmoud words like that, even if we reduce illegal migration, so-called, to zero to mo, right? They're not going to do that. I think it's possible to believe, and I think this is basically our argument, right, is to say that the numbers of people who are basically falling under the spell of the far right, the far right's arguments are appealing to, perhaps for the first time, is greater because this problem seems to elude any control from any government of any colour.

8:44Raja Krishnamoorthi:and I do have to say have some sympathy for that argument because again it's possible to believe two things at once one is as we've said on this show many times the total numbers of asylum seekers who are coming over irregularly is in the grand sweep of European irregular migration and indeed migration overall to this country relatively small you know it is dwarfed by for example the number of legal migrants who are coming over to study or whatever but it is also true to say that this has metastasized in a way that even maybe 18 months ago, I did not anticipate. And I can understand in the sense that what she is trying to make an argument to, which I think is legitimate, is to say that, look, on the left and the Labour Party and others and progressives, you know, there has been a long standing focus, which I think is fair enough, on the push factors.

9:30Raja Krishnamoorthi:I think in fairness, there has not been a sufficient and adequate amount of attention paid to the substantial pull factors, which do exist. And I think more than anything, I mean, I am not convinced to any one particular of these measures. I think a lot of them won't really work for lots and lots of reasons, some of which you talked about on the show yesterday. I think there's lots of sort of technical difficulties and whatever, but she is clearly trying to send a very, very clear signal to the people smugglers and indeed to the people thinking of making the journey themselves. And I think that given where we are with the collapsed, and it is a collapsed level of public consent for the refugee system at the moment because it appears so lawless and without control, I think she had little choice, actually.

10:12Shabana Mahmood:I would say that it is perfectly legitimate for a Home Secretary to want to bring down irregular migration when the numbers get too high. We should put in context the fact that actually net migration has fallen, has almost halved in the last year, partly because of changes the last government made to student visas, partly because actually a lot more Brits have left this country than was even reported. I think the number was 240 ,000, where the number that we were originally given by the Office of National Statistics was around 40 ,000, 50 ,000. So, A, those numbers were wrong and have been corrected.

10:50Shabana Mahmood:But I think my problem with this is if you're addressing the problem because you think genuinely the numbers are too high, then address the problem because the numbers are too high. Don't address the problem because people are using racist language. I don't see how that can ever be a justification because to your point, Lewis, you're absolutely right. Don't think that people are going to stop calling, you know, ethnic minority people terrible slurs if the numbers go down.

11:18Raja Krishnamoorthi:I think something has changed and you see it most obviously on social media where there has been a real, I mean, I want to say coarsening of the language, but that doesn't quite do it justice. this the vileness of the language is there in a plenty which it wasn't before because there wasn't social media doing stuff like this but that is obviously being translating to other people thinking well i've seen it on social media i can say this stuff out loud and it's reprehensible and it's frankly disgusting i think she really does believe it when she says that this is and we can debate whether it's true but she really believes that it is tearing our politics apart and i think that i mean for me i think and i think for what a lot of labour mps would probably like to hear i I think that there probably is, to use an old-fashioned phrase now, it is possible for the government to triangulate on this a little bit politically, which is to say, and this is clearly what they've sort of been trying to do, although it's been a bit muddled.

12:10Raja Krishnamoorthi:I mean, it's true that no matter what Mahmood does, Farage and the rest of them will go further to the right. It will not be long before we start talking about re-immigration and all this sort of stuff. But it is possible for... There is a middle ground position which Labour could adopt, which is to say there are the Greens and there are the Lib Dems and others who do not seem to want to address the moral and political problems which come from this system which is out of control. Then there are the people like Farage and others who are too extreme in the other direction and want to remove people who have a right legally to be in this country.

12:42Raja Krishnamoorthi:And what the Labour Party and what the Labour government is for is an ordered system which also sets up safe and legal routes once we've got this position under control. I think that that is a politically saliable position and I think it's a fair and equitable position.

12:55Shabana Mahmood:I'll tell you, talking of language, whilst we're talking of language, we should also comment on the language that Kemi Badenok used, which was to praise Shabana Mahmood for her fresh energy. And she said she genuinely wants her to succeed. There is a dirty little secret that no one is really talking about. But I had it confirmed to me by a very senior conservative figure and a senior Labour figure last week. and that is that Labour and the Conservatives want each other to win on this. The Conservatives want to be able to back Labour because they see a world in which if Labour gets immigration under control, the Conservative Party will succeed Labour whenever that time comes.

13:37Shabana Mahmood:As soon as reform is in the door, they think that's the end of the two-party system that they have. And so I think Kemi Badenock is being pretty honest actually when she says, yeah, we do want Mahmoud to succeed with this. We want Labour to triumph with this because that is our best bet as a Conservative party of getting back into the place of opposition and pushing reform out the door completely.

13:59Raja Krishnamoorthi:Well, also, I mean, if the rebellion is large and it could be, I mean, I think my impression, most Labour MPs are going to wait to see actually what comes out of the consultation. A lot of this stuff is still subject to consultation, right? A bit like, well, exactly what happened with the welfare bill. So, you know, you could have a reasonably substantial majority and it would be embarrassing if the Labour Party of the government had to get it through on Tory votes. Right. So there's a sort of tactical win for her there. And as you say, I mean, potentially a longer strategic one as well. I mean, my sense from what Labour MPs are sort of grappling with, going back to just basically orbiting around this discussion we're having, is that I think Labour are sort of basically wrestling with exactly what happened to the Danish Labour Party, which is what is basically the genesis of all of this.

14:39Raja Krishnamoorthi:Right. Because it is true that when the Danish Labour Party, the Danish Social Democrats, adopted many of these measures after their version of reform, a kind of radical right party did extremely well at a particular election. It is true that for a while anyway, it really did drain the energy from that party. The question that the Danish Labour Party has sort of had to grapple with is, at what cost? Have you moved so far in that direction that you become the thing that you went into politics to oppose? Which was like Boris and the Brexit Party in 2019, frankly.

15:11Shabana Mahmood:They became the Brexit Party.

15:12Raja Krishnamoorthi:Yeah, and so that's the... That's right. I'm sure Mahmoud would say, no, look, we're not going to become them. What we're going to do is drain the poison. So prevent them from coming in and doing a load of things that we wouldn't like to do. But that is, I think, the sort of the moral political question that the Labour Party or Labour MPs are kind of grappling with in all sorts of ways.

15:29Shabana Mahmood:With Tommy tapping on the shoulder.

15:31Raja Krishnamoorthi:Indeed, and that makes it very uncomfortable. And also the latest, I mean, you know, which and the other thing that Labour MPs who oppose Shabana Mahmoud's proposals are pointing to is what is happening in Copenhagen now right now to the Labour Party, the Danish Labour Party, where they're about to lose control of the city for the first time in history. Well, it didn't work out so well in the long term, did it? So, I mean, you know, those arguments will carry on, won't they? But I do think that, I mean, my sense is that, yes, there will be a rebellion and she's going to have to work hard to bring them round.

16:03Raja Krishnamoorthi:I sense, and maybe this is misplaced, that unlike the welfare reform measures where there was kind of the attempts to bring Labour backbenchers on board was so woeful that they felt emboldened to rebel. She's been doing a lot of parliamentary outreach. I think that what I'm hearing is that she's doing an awful lot.

16:22Shabana Mahmood:We're six months on from that.

16:24Raja Krishnamoorthi:Yeah.

16:24Shabana Mahmood:Nothing's got better.

16:25Raja Krishnamoorthi:No. And so, I mean, if she loses on this, then the Labour Party... It's kind of the beginning of the end. It really is. I think it is, because I think there's then just a question that the PLP, the Parliamentary Labour Party, is ungovernable. Exactly. It's not willing to do anything that the government wants it to do. And so, and I'm sure that's the argument that the whips, among others, will be making to them.

16:43Shabana Mahmood:In a moment, we will be back talking about that vote on releasing the Epstein files that is about to take place in Congress.

16:55Raja Krishnamoorthi:News you can trust and the conversations that matter.