Can Shabana Mahmood ‘save Starmer’s skin’?

Migrants will have to prove they are contributing to British society to earn the right to remain in the UK, the new home secretary has told the Labour conference.

Shabana Mahmood wants to draw a “clear dividing line” between the government and Reform UK, said the BBC, as she takes the fight to Nigel Farage’s party on immigration.

What did the commentators say?

In her new role, Mahmood has “been placed in the centre of the storm”, said Jonathan Rutherford in The New Statesman. If she can “stop the boats, restore trust in policing and reduce levels of immigration”, Labour “has a fighting chance” of winning the next election. She’s “perhaps the most astute and able politician of her generation”, with a strong understanding of this “new era”, in which “culture and identity are as much sources of intense emotional and political conflict as the failing economy”.

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Her move to the Home Office feels like Labour’s “last chance to stave off" Farage, said John Rentoul in The Independent. Her “record suggests that she would not be squeamish about trying policies” on immigration "that may have once seemed unthinkable”.

“As things stand”, said Fraser Nelson in The Times, Labour will “lose the next general election" to Reform, but Mahmood can “puncture Reform’s main selling point: that only an insurgent party will say what ‘ordinary people’ are thinking”. Keir Starmer is “surrounded by too many bad angels whispering bad advice” but, with Mahmood, he “has someone on the other shoulder, advocating the kind of policies that appeal beyond the confines of Labour’s tribal politics”.

Her “task is really to save Starmer’s skin”, said Anne McElvoy in The i Paper. This “raises the question” of whether she might one day decide “that her own future might lie" in being Labour leader, rather than “just acting as its emergency callout service when things fall apart”.

Not so fast. It’s “extremely unlikely” that Mahmood’s immigration measures will be enough to “restore Labour’s fortunes”, said Peter Franklin on Unherd. Shutting the migrant hotels will only boost public opinion if the plan for replacement “purpose-built accommodation” works. Finding a solution to the issues with the European Convention on Human Rights is “another uphill struggle” and the one-in, one-out deal with France “won’t satisfy the none-in, all-out mood of the Reform-voting electorate”.

The “rupture" between Labour and its “traditional voter base” is “fundamental” – even Mahmood’s own seat of Birmingham Ladywood is “under threat”. Against this backdrop, “half-measures and token gestures aren’t enough”.

What next?

Mahmood's proposals on tightening the criteria for indefinite leave to remain – which include, alongside evidence of giving back to society, having a high standard of English, not being on benefits and not having a criminal record – will go out for consultation later this year.

She's voiced her vision of "an open, tolerant, generous country" where "integration can be shown to work", said Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian. It remains to be seen, said Sky News, whether that vision wobbles as “the first of the so-called ‘Boriswave’” of immigrants qualify to apply for indefinite leave to remain next year.