Muslim Home Secretary to take harder line on illegal migration

Shabana Mahmood, who in Sir Keir Starmer’s reshuffle was appointed the first female Muslim Home Secretary, will take on Reform and the Tories by articulating a tougher line on illegal migration.

As Justice Secretary, she impressed Downing Street with her handling of Labour’s first big crisis with prison overcrowding last summer and then closing down a row over two-tier justice by slapping down the Sentencing Council.

Insiders said Sir Keir would be looking to the new Home Secretary to push a similar uncompromising but assured approach on migration to wrest back the initiative.

After a summer of protests against asylum policy, polls suggest the public has lost faith in the Government’s ability to handle the small boats crisis.

“She has coped with the prison crisis pretty well without a drastic kind of backlash. Now it’s about getting Shabana in that position to try to claw back some of the ground that Labour has lost on immigration,” said a source.

“She will be able to deliver some tough messages around immigration because of her Pakistani heritage, which Yvette Cooper might have found much harder.”