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 any Muslim woman, and also of Pakistani-origin 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.
