Shabana Mahmood blocks ruling that protected Palestinian family

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has succeeded in reversing a human rights-based ruling that allowed a family of Palestinian refugees fleeing Israel’s genocide in Gaza, to remain in the UK.

The Court of Appeal backed Mahmood’s bid to prevent refugees using a scheme designed for (almost all white) Ukrainians to remain in Britain under the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) to protect family life. This overturns the decision of an immigration tribunal ruling that horrified the Israel lobby and the far-right because it said that a Palestinian family qualified for the scheme’s protection.

The appeal court instead ruled that family links between siblings are not strong enough to justify them remaining in the UK under Article 8 of the ECHR.

Human Home Secretary’s rights

The appeal court judges also decided that immigration tribunals must take account of the Home Secretary’s right to act in the interests of “the economic well-being of the country or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.” The ruling completely ignores the Home Office’s own evidence that immigrants are net contributors to the UK’s economic health rather than detracting from it.

The Appeal Court’s ruling is deeply dangerous because government lawyers will use it as a precedent to persuade immigration tribunals to rule against desperate refugees with UK family in future cases.

Mahmood is preparing new legislation to further limit the scope for immigration courts to consider Article 8 human rights in asylum applications and appeals against deportation, requiring judges to prioritise supposed ‘public safety’ over individual rights.

 

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Shabana Mahmood was not always a dog-whistling xenophobe who would rather pander to racists than respect human rights — and the international law that underpins them. In 2015 — before Keir Starmer got his claws into Labour and imposed his fanatical support for Israel and his thirst for the approval of racists — she wrote that helping refugees whether in their own regions or in Europe was a “moral duty”:

we have a moral duty to act. When the refugees make it to the shores of Lesvos they are not just on Greece’s doorstep but our doorstep too.

I welcome the government’s policy proposals to help refugees directly from the camps, who have not made the dangerous journey to Europe. But we cannot simply ignore the crisis in Europe, either.

It is not an either/or situation – we must have a strategy and a willingness to help both refugees in the region and those who have made it to Europe…

…Their desperation is not lessened because they have a degree or because they had a good job before war and chaos descended.

Fear of death doesn’t diminish because of the money you used to have or the standard of the house you used to live in.

It is a false distinction and we mustn’t fall for it.

We have to work with our European partners and create new, safe, and legal routes for refugees to get to Europe. We cannot abandon them to their fate, left as prey for smugglers whilst risking death on the seas… the push factor [for people fleeing to Europe and the UK] is either death or the slow torture of a temporary life in a camp which amounts to no kind of life at all. If that is what they face then they are going to run. We cannot kid ourselves that they have choices; we have to act.

Shabana Mahmood of 2015 would hate this one

Shabana Mahmood was also once enough of an advocate of Palestinian rights to argue publicly in favour of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against the Israeli occupation. Her own website still boasts that:

I am, and always have been, a passionate and determined supporter of Palestinian rights and my parliamentary record on this issue speaks for itself. My support extends fully to citizens in the Occupied Palestinian Territories who have had themselves or their families displaced or injured by Israel’s military action in the region.

Not any more, you’re not, Ms Mahmood. Now you are a shill for your racist boss and his twin Islamophobic obsessions with Israel and with pandering to the racist right from whom he is functionally indistinguishable. You are helping him make sure that Palestinians and others guilty of fleeing-while-brown are rejected or made to live in fear that they will be, while ‘schemes for Ukrainians’ are only available for those pale folk.

Shame on you.

Featured image via the Canary