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Category: Shabana Mahmood

  • Fears raised for 40 children still missing from asylum-seeker hotels

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/fears-raised-40-children-still-missing-asylum-seeker-hotels

     Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood during a meeting with representatives from criminal justice agencies at number 10 Downing Street, Westminster, April 30, 2026

    FORTY children remain missing from asylum-seeker hotels and could have become victims of trafficking or exploitation, MPs warned today.

    More than 400 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children went missing from Home Office hotels, it emerged in 2023. 

    The Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) said today that 40 of the youngsters, two of whom remain under 18, had still not been found as of June. The use of hotels to house lone child asylum-seekers was banned in 2023.

    Last year then border security and asylum minister Dame Angela Eagle told the committee that some of those found were “located in exploitative situations and may have been trafficked or victims of other forms of exploitation.”

    The JCHR said that it continues “to be extremely concerned about the fact that some children who went missing from asylum hotels in previous years remain missing.”

    …

    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/fears-raised-40-children-still-missing-asylum-seeker-hotels

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  • Jeremy Corbyn on Andy Burnham

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  • Fourteen Years in Prison for Quoting Hamas? New Law Could Criminalise Journalists

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    https://zeteo.uk/p/fourteen-years-in-prison-for-quoting

    The UK Parliament, London. Photo by Hesther Ng/SOPA Images/Sipa USA via Reuters

    Starmer is rushing legislation through parliament that experts say threatens free speech, public interest journalism and international humanitarian aid

    Sir Keir Starmer’s historically unpopular and soon-to-be-replaced administration is using its last gasps to push through a new national security law that experts believe will pose serious threats to free speech, public interest journalism and the provision of international humanitarian aid.

    The new legislation, called the national security (state threats) bill, is intended to update existing national security legislation. It has been introduced by the current home secretary, Shabana Mahmood. Mahmood is widely seen as a hardliner in Starmer’s government, responsible for introducing tougher restrictions on the settlement rights of asylum seekers and immigrants. The bill has been rushed through the Commons and is now being pushed at pace through the Lords. The government wants to have the law on the statute books within weeks.

    …

    Free speech and press freedom groups argue that the bill threatens public interest journalism – a view endorsed by two independent reviewers of terrorism legislation. David Anderson, the government’s former independent reviewer, has said that journalists would be “at risk of prosecution if they were to have contact of any kind with sources within designated bodies or their agents”. Any journalist who works with a source in a hostile foreign government, or simply approaches them for information, could face more than a decade in prison.

    Jonathan Hall, the government’s current independent reviewer, has raised similar concerns. He has pushed for the law to include a “reasonable excuse” defence covering the exchange of information.

    The practical implications of the bill for journalism are wide-ranging and devastating.

    https://zeteo.uk/p/fourteen-years-in-prison-for-quoting

    Keir Starmer confirms that he doesn't know anything about democracy.
    Keir Starmer confirms that he doesn’t know anything about democracy.

  • Home Office reaches ‘new depths of cruelty’ with plans to saddle refugees with £10K debt

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/home-office-reaches-new-depths-cruelty-plans-saddle-refugees-ps10k-debt

     RAF Linton-On-Ouse in North Yorkshire, which the Home Office plans to use to detain thousands of asylum seekers in its quest to shut more hotels, June 26, 2026

    FORCING people seeking refuge into £10,000 of debt is an “abandonment of principles that should never be negotiable,” campaigners warned today as the government published new plans for its immigration system.

    Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced the proposal, which would order asylum-seekers to pay the sum to cover living costs while they await a decision on their status.

    If they do not pay, Ms Mahmood’s plans would automatically deny refugees settled status in Britain.

    Critics immediately slammed the means-tested scheme, saying it would punish people fleeing war, torture and famine.

    And it would only raise a “relatively small” amount for the Home Office’s goals of cutting the amount it spends each year on asylum accommodation and support by £4 billion.

    The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI) condemned the move as “yet another shameless attempt by Labour to inflate the coffers of private companies like Serco, Mears and Clearsprings with multibillion-pound contracts to run asylum accommodation unfit for human habitation.”

    JCWI spokesperson Seema Syeda told the Star: “Forcing people seeking safety into debt to pay for it is new depths of cruelty.

    “There’s a simple solution: give asylum-seekers the right to rent and the right to work, so they can live in our communities in accommodation they choose — as all human beings deserve to be treated.

    …

    Continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/home-office-reaches-new-depths-cruelty-plans-saddle-refugees-ps10k-debt