WATCH: Reform councillor calls for Shabana Mahmood to secure 'returns deal with Pakistan' amid grooming gangs scandal
Nov 18, 2025
Laila Cunningham has torn into Shabana Mahmood's asylum reforms, accusing the Home Secretary of "virtue signalling".Speaking to GB News, the Reform UK Councillor said Labour is "taking us for fools" with their policy on tackling the country's migrant crisis.FULL STORY HERE.
Show More Show Less View Video Transcript
0:00
I guess it looks like that Labour's been looking at the polls for the past 10 months
0:03
seeing reform storming by a wide margin and thought, hmm, maybe we need to do something about this
0:09
Do you have much confidence that they will succeed in their plans that Mahmood announced today
0:14
No, I don't actually, Ben, because if you really look at the plans, she's basically saying that if you do arrive here illegally on a boat
0:20
we're going to reward you with a two-year fully welcome, fully supported, all-inclusive stay
0:25
I mean, that's not a deterrent. That's an incentive. A guaranteed two-year stay for anyone who comes on a boat
0:31
It's an open invitation. And then she says, oh, you know, we'll keep you
0:35
we'll only remove you once your country's safe. I mean, come on, you and I know that Afghanistan
0:40
is not going to be safe in our lifetime, and they know it. And they're not really coming for settlement
0:45
They're coming for arrival. Entry is the main point. And they know that in two years they'll fight it
0:49
under some ECHR claim. For me, it's just, it's a bit of virtue signalling
0:53
Yeah. Go on. Sorry, Sinsjel, it's a bit of a delay. So I guess in her defence, just playing devil's advocate here, Mahmood was saying in Parliament today that, you know, the sort of standard, the level of what's needed to define a safe country is going to be a lot lower than it was
1:11
For example, that she was really off to some instances where we wouldn't send people back because the prison cells they would potentially end up in, in whatever country it was, were too small compared to UK standards
1:22
And she was saying, well, this is an absolute joke. Of course, we're going to scrap that rule. So they are, I guess, trying to do something to enforce deportations
1:30
Ben, I feel they take us for fools because, for instance, the three countries that she
1:34
said that she would crack down on visas if they don take returns I think it was Angola Congo and DRC only a handful of people have arrived on boat those are not those are not the countries which were worried about um there are other countries
1:46
that i'm you know she went for a soft target because if she goes for the hard target she's
1:50
she's gonna fail i mean we have an over 80 success rate for people who claim asylum from eritrea or
1:56
ethiopia um and then she said she wants to community sponsorship uh to have communities
2:02
more engaged. But that worries me, because in places like Rotherham or Rochdale, those communities
2:07
that protected the rapists, will they be able to sponsor community sponsorship? And so there's a
2:15
lot of questions for me. You know, I'd like to see actually her to get a returns agreement with
2:20
Pakistan to deal with the rape gangs. But of course, she does have a political base to protect
2:24
So I haven't seen that yet. She also said that she's not going to guarantee housing or financial
2:29
support, really. What are they going to do? Are they going to live on the streets? Are they going to become the council's problem? It's just it's not thought through. And I don't want I want
2:38
illegal entry reform wants illegal entry into this country to stop being decriminalised and to be
2:44
treated as a crime. And if you enter this country illegally, you cannot claim asylum. It's what any
2:48
serious country does. Yeah. And also you made a point there, which I do agree with about kind of
2:54
I guess it's low hanging fruit. Labour have been banging on about 50,000 deportations since they
2:59
It took power. But it's and I'll say it again. I repeat myself like a broken record
3:03
It's the nail, but the Vietnamese nail bar workers, you know, the the sweet little women who, OK, granted, they shouldn't be here in the first place
3:09
But they're causing no harm. The people are concerned about the kind of third worlders who come from cultures totally alien to us
3:17
who have different standards of objectivity towards women, children, so on and so on
#news
#Social Issues & Advocacy


