Who is Shabana Mahmood? UK's first-ever Pakistani-origin, Muslim home secretary

LONDON: UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has named Kashmiri and Pakistani-origin Shabana Mahmood as the new home secretary – this is for the first time in the UK’s history that anyone from a Pakistani and Muslim background has risen to the powerful position of the head of the Home Office.

The announcement came in the wake of Angela Rayner’s resignation as Deputy Prime Minister over her flat’s scandal. The Home Office oversees immigration, policing, and national security administration.

"It is the honour of my life to serve as Home Secretary. The first responsibility of the government is the safety of its citizens. Every day in this job, I will be devoted to that purpose," Mahmood said.

Mahmood was born to Kashmiri-Pakistani parents, Zubaida and Mahmood Ahmed, in Birmingham in 1980. Her parents are originally from Mirpur in Azad Kashmir, but decades ago moved to Jhelum’s Bohriyan village near Ludhar. Shabana spent her early years in Saudi Arabia before returning to the UK. She pursued her law degree at Lincoln College, Oxford, and qualified as a barrister specialising in professional indemnity cases.

She entered politics in 2010. She was elected as an MP from Birmingham Ladywood, marking a turning point in her political career. She was one of the UK’s first female Muslim MPs. Since then, she has held several key roles, including Shadow Financial Secretary to the Treasury and Shadow Minister for Prisons.

Last year, she spoke to Geo News at length on how she has faced harassment and intimidation from members of the local Pakistani community. She is now facing the worst kind of racist and Islamophobic attacks from the far-right extremists after her appointment as the Home Secretary.

After winning the 2024 election, she was appointed as justice secretary and lord chancellor. She introduced several schemes to manage the overcrowded prisons and to address the court backlogs. Last week, she introduced major legislation in Parliament aimed at reforming the prison system in the UK.

Home Secretary Mahmood is set to take on one of the toughest briefs in government as pressure mounts over record Channel crossings, asylum hotels, and migration.

As lord chancellor and justice secretary over the past year, Mahmood has been tasked with tackling the jail overcrowding crisis and has just introduced major legislation to Parliament to overhaul the prison system earlier this week.

The courts’ backlog has also been a key focus of her brief, but the daughter of immigrants, of Kashmiri origin, has also been drawn into immigration policy that will form much of her new day job.

Mahmood backed Sir Keir Starmer after he said that Britain risked becoming an “island of strangers” in May, although she avoided using the term.

Asked whether she would repeat the Prime Minister’s language, she said: “I agree with the Prime Minister that without curbs on migration, without making sure that we have strong rules that everyone follows, and that we have a pace of immigration that allows for integration into our country, we do risk becoming a nation of people estranged from one another.

“And what he has described is something that I absolutely believe in, and which are the values of the Labour Party, which is a desire to see this country as a nation of neighbours.”

Earlier this summer, Mahmood also said the European Convention on Human Rights must be reformed to win back public confidence across the continent.

On Tuesday, she further told the Lords Constitution Committee that it is “perfectly fine” for ministers to question the UK’s interpretation of upholding the treaty, adding that European colleagues view the UK as being more on the “maximalist end of the spectrum”.

The former barrister will now be in charge of proposals to tighten the use of Article 8, the right to family and private life, of the ECHR in immigration cases, which are expected to be brought this autumn.

As justice secretary, she also proposed a change in the law for foreign criminals to be deported immediately when they receive a custodial sentence, at a time the Home Office has been working to increase the number of returns of migrants with no legal right to be in the UK.

Announcing the plan last month, she said: “If you abuse our hospitality and break our laws, we will send you packing. Deportations are up under this Government, and with this new law, they will happen earlier than ever before.”

Her appointment has been welcomed by the founder of Blue Labour, Lord Glasman, who told Politico the move was “fantastic”.

“She’s now clearly the leader of our part of the party.”

Mahmood told Geo News last year that in her 14 years of public life as a Pakistani-Kashmiri origin Muslim woman in the UK, she has encountered intimidation and harassment, emphasising that being a Muslim woman in public life is challenging.

Mahmood explained that she had not previously discussed such harassment because she did not want people, “especially our sisters, daughters, to perceive politics negatively and be deterred by the challenges of intimidation and harassment”.

In her constituency in Birmingham, which she won around 15 years ago, Mahmood, a leading figure in Starmer’s closest circle, faced a lot of misinformation, fake news, and misogynistic attacks from a group of men who were vying to oust her in this election.

In several parts of the constituency, her posters were ripped off. She had been accused of the things she has not done, and for that purpose social media sites such as TikTok and Instagram have been used to direct hate at her.

She expressed that being the sole Muslim woman in a key role in parliament is a motivating factor.

Responding to a query about the Palestine issue and the ongoing war in Gaza, she said innocent children are being killed, cruelty is rampant, and millions of people are deeply saddened and affected by it.

She stated that the Labour Party believes in a two-state solution and that is the only way to end the Palestine-Israel conflict.