Shabana Mahmood’s immigration plan is Labour’s last chance to stem tide of extremism from left and right
Shabana Mahmood’s intention to introduce tough new laws on asylum and immigration is already seen by many within the Labor Party and the trade union movement as deliberately provocative behavior and further damaging to the Labor Party brand.
Anger at the home secretary was fueled by last week’s by-election defeat to the Greens in Gorton and Denton; For many on the left, it is confirmation that the project under Sir Keir Starmer is systematically undermining “real” Labor values and destroying its voter base.
The move to table this legislation before local, Welsh and Scottish elections in May, which is expected to be the end of Sir Keir’s premiership in many respects, could well be this government’s last gasp.
But it also confirms that a new star has emerged on the party’s right, as the fight for Labour’s soul, future direction and leadership begins.
It was notable that this week a leading minister on the Labor right described Ms Mahmood as: Independent He is seen as “far superior to the rest of the cabinet” and “the only one who follows the right solutions”.
Just before Christmas, as the embattled Sir Keir tried to spend as little time as he could with lobby journalists at the annual meeting in Downing Street, Ms Mahmood was actually being supported across the road at an event hosted by former prime minister Sir Tony Blair.
And in some ways he has now become a defender of the right wing of the party, or at least of those seeking solutions to many of the problems facing the UK, not least mass immigration.
A former supporter of health secretary Wes Streeting and another potential leadership candidate from the party’s right has suggested he is no longer a viable candidate because he “bottled” Scottish leader Anas Sarwar by not supporting him when he tried to launch a coup against Starmer over the Peter Mandelson crisis.
“Wes already had at least two chances, probably three, and he blew them all. If no one is willing to put the ball on the court and lead, then we deserve everything we get.”
But Streeting or Mahmood will have to carry the flame of Sir Keir’s now disgraced former chief of staff Morgan McSweeney’s claim, who was forced to resign over the Mandelson scandal, that the real threat to the masses in the Labor Party is not the Greens but Nigel Farage’s UK Reform.
But after the disaster in Gorton and Denton, where Labor limped into third place behind Reform in second, this is an unpopular position, even if it is a valid argument. Ms Mahmood is at least showing that she will not be afraid of extreme events, such as the by-election defeat of a party that wants to liberalize drug laws while scrapping nuclear weapons.
As Labor MPs on the left talk about becoming more like the Greens, they may need to look at a not-so-small fraction of what leader Zack Polanski is proposing.
Ms Mahmood demonstrates the courage of her principles and true leadership as she seeks to solve one of the biggest problems of our time and offers a serious alternative to the mass deportation and Trump-style ICE force proposed by Mr Farage and his party.
However, despite all this, the support for pragmatism is gradually decreasing within the Labor Party.
Instead, Labor is poised to repeat the Conservatives’ mistake of finding a leader who acts as a comfort blanket for their ideology in a limited electorate.
In 2022 the Conservatives turned to Liz Truss because she offered tax cuts, pro-Brexit extremism and appealed to the fantasies of many on the right rather than the practicalities of actual governance. We all know how this turned out.
This ideology was imposed on voters without them having a say, and meant that even though Truss’s premiership lasted 49 days, the Conservative Party, which had already suffered discredit under Boris Johnson’s premiership, was not forgiven.
Likewise, Labor will likely reject Ms Mahmood’s practicality and centrist sensible thinking, and will almost certainly opt for Angela Rayner or an alternative from the soft left who will do and say what they want to hear; It will move the Labor government’s agenda sharply to the left without the consent of the British people.
Such a move would be a gift for an operator like Farage, who can play the betrayal card as well as anyone.
But there is still a chance Labor can stick with Starmer or choose an alternative who can deliver its manifesto with more charisma and better leadership. Ms Mahmood’s intervention on Thursday could be a final stand for this line of thinking and a final opportunity to stem the tide of extremism on both the left and right of British politics.
