Nigel Farage explains how Shabana Mahmood can defect from Labour | Politics | News
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has been invited to apply to join Reform UK using a special website the party has set up for asylum seekers. This will mean providing your National Insurance number, a scan of your passport page and a utility bill stating your address. Reform England leader Nigel Farage suggested he might consider leaving Labor after Ms Mahmood announced plans to reduce immigration. Reform policy chief Zia Yusuf also said Ms Mahmood would be welcome if she truly believed small boat crossings into the UK should be stopped. He said: “Who knows if she really believes this? Maybe. Maybe she does. Shabana Mahmood really wants to stop the boats.”
“If he really wants to do that. Then you can go to the Reform Party. The UK can prevent departures. You can fill out a form.” Reform says the web page www.reformparty.uk/defections was set up “given the concentration of current and former elected officials from other parties wishing to join Reform”. The party now has a special team handling applications and promises would-be asylum seekers: “Your application will be treated in the strictest confidence.”
Applicants are asked to submit a photo, their full CV, a scan of their passport and links to all social media accounts; so the Reformation will be able to control what they say in the past.
However, only those who want to help Reformation will be accepted, not those who want to join the party that is ahead in the polls.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage told the Express: “The rules are very simple in terms of asylum seekers. They need to have people who will contribute to us, who will help us as a party, who will help us as a movement, as opposed to people trying to revive their political careers.”
Mr Farage is not expecting a recourse from Ms Mahmood after telling Sky News: “Nigel Farage can be robbed. Nothing he says concerns me.”
But he also warned that the plan to reduce immigration was doomed to fail, saying that although he agreed with some of the “rhetoric” he did not believe it had any chance of success, especially because Labor MPs would seek to undermine it.
Mr Farage said: “Despite her protests, I thought much of what Shabana Mahmood said yesterday came directly out of her fear of Labor losing votes to Reform.
“And rhetorically we agree with much of what the Home Secretary has said.”
Mr Farage argued that despite the focus on illegal immigration, “economically legal immigration does enormous damage to the British economy”.
He also highlighted Labour’s plan to require wealthy asylum seekers to contribute to their bed and board, a measure described as confiscating asylum seekers’ valuables. Mr Farage said Labor would have attacked him if he had proposed something similar.
