Tony Blair gives Shabana Mahmood stamp of approval amid Labour leadership speculation
Sign up to our free Brexit newsletter for our analysis of the continuing impact of Brexit on the UKSign up to our free newsletter for the latest analysis on Brexit's impactSign up to our free newsletter for the latest analysis on Brexit's impactTony Blair has effectively endorsed Shabana Mahmood as a future Labour leader, praising her as “brilliant” and “impressive” in a joint public appearance with the home secretary.The former Labour prime minister hosted a Christmas event for the Tony Blair Institute (TBI) alongside Ms Mahmood, which she used to deliver a passionate personal and political manifesto.Amid widespread speculation that Sir Keir Starmer could be forced to step down as prime minister, Ms Mahmood has emerged among the front runners to succeed him, with Sir Tony saying he was “thrilled” to get the chance to interview her.The TBI event took place at a prestigious hotel in Whitehall, just across the road from where the current prime minister was simultaneously hosting lobby journalists in Downing Street. Sir Tony praised the home secretary’s “radical” style and the “political philosophy” behind her crackdown on immigration, comparing it to his own approach in power.open image in galleryTony Blair interviews Shabana Mahmood on stage at the TBI Christmas party (David Maddox)Ms Mahmood used the prestigious Labour platform to speak of her struggle to overcome social media abuse and make her mark as a “brown Muslim woman”.She would not give in to “some two-bit idiot on Twitter”, she said.With Labour struggling in the polls, her name is mentioned alongside those of the health secretary Wes Streeting, energy secretary Ed Miliband, and former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner as a potential candidate to replace Sir Keir in Downing Street in the new year.In a relaxed performance, the home secretary joked that the criminal gangs behind illegal immigration were so clever that if they set up conventional businesses, Britain’s economic ills would soon be over.And she said that tip-offs from voters in her Birmingham Ladywood constituency, about “dodgy care home” immigration scams, and abuses of the rules that allow spouses of immigrants settled in Britain to join them, were shaping her immigration curbs. Ms Mahmood said the British people are “decent, honest and tolerant” towards immigrants – but only if they come here legally. And she claimed that there is support for strong controls on illegal and legal migration from both “white and non-white working-class communities”.During the interview, Ms Mahmood bared her soul and compared her Islamic faith to that of devout Christian Sir Tony, stating that it was her main motivation for joining the Labour Party.However, unlike him, she said, she is proud to talk about the importance of her religious beliefs.She recalled the famous occasion when Sir Tony, as prime minister, was asked by a journalist about his Christian beliefs, only for his press secretary Alastair Campbell to interject: “We don’t do God.” “Is Alastair Campbell here?” asked Ms Mahmood at Wednesday night’s event. “You and I can do God – that’s good,” she told Sir Tony.She continued: “My faith, very much, has called me to public service as well. So it’s less about the party ... and more that I was ... serving my own people. I believe life is a test, and you are accountable to God for how you use the privileges you were gifted at birth by God, and that really motivates me.”open image in galleryKeir Starmer is facing questions over his leadership (House of Commons/UK Parliament/PA)Speaking of her determination to defy racist critics, she said: “People have been trying to knock me down for a long time, because being a brown Muslim woman in politics is not an easy thing in and of itself. I have seen off every attempt to deflect me, to shut me up, to knock me down.”She faced “horrible campaigns”, she said, but came through stronger because of her “I refuse to lose” attitude.Ms Mahmood said she had “sacrificed a lot to be here” and would not be silenced by “some two-bit idiot on Twitter”. “There is no racist in this land, or anywhere else in the world, that is going to make me feel like I don’t belong in my own country,” she said.Immigration laws are “subject to huge amounts of abuse” and the public “feel pretty hacked off about it”, she said, adding that voters are entitled to feel angry when rules are broken “because in this country, two of the things we prize above all else are fairness and contribution. “We’re very willing to give people a chance in our country, to be part of us and to become one of us. If people feel, ‘Well, that’s fair, you came in in a proper way,’ and if they feel ‘You’re contributing’ ... it unlocks the generosity of the British people. “Our nation is full of very decent people who are generous, very open-minded and tolerant. But there are conditions to unlocking that openness.”Immigration controls have support from all communities, she said. “I represent a part of the world that is majority non-white, so I see immigrant working-class communities reacting in exactly the same way that white working-class communities do, to the issues of both legal and illegal migration.”Whistleblowers in her constituency had informed her of “dodgy care-provider companies being set up ... people coming over, allegedly to work in the care sector, and not working at all”.“I have drawn almost totally on my constituency experience,” she continued. “People are currently disclosing to me what they can see as abuses in the spousal visa system; organised crime, and how it is operating in and around [asylum seeker] hotels.”Promising to implement further tough measures in her campaign to “smash the gangs” behind illegal immigration and the small boats, Ms Mahmood said: “Organised criminals are highly enterprising people, and if they were legit businessmen, this country wouldn’t have an economic problem. These people know what they’re doing. They move really fast.”Asked how she could avoid the charge from some Labour MPs that her policies were “anti-immigrant”, Ms Mahmood conceded that she would not win them all over – but was not overly concerned.“That’s OK on one level. It’s a numbers game, it’s politics. open image in galleryMahmood told Blair her stance on illegal immigration had been influenced by ‘dodgy care-providers being set up’ in her own constituency (PA)“Sometimes you have to accept there’s people within your own tribe that have a different view on a particular issue, and I’m pretty comfortable with that; the party is a coalition of people.”But with the issue of leadership hanging over the event, the audience laughed when Sir Tony invited Mahmood to say how she would save the troubled Labour Party.When he observed that her battles with the Labour left had echoes of his own problems confronting the left-wing militant tendency in the 1990s, Ms Mahmood replied: “It is probably the same stories, maybe even with some of the same characters [as] the Militant era; nothing ever really changes. “I really believe in what I’m doing. So when people try to knock you off course ... it sort of almost doesn’t matter what barrage of noise you might get from whichever quarter, because this is the right thing for the country.” She defended her bold approach to solving major political problems like immigration, characterising it as “go big – or go home”.When Sir Tony held a similar discussion at the Tony Blair Institute in July 2023 with Sir Keir, a year before the general election, it was seen as a deliberate move to help the Labour leader win power. Some saw Sir Tony’s interview with Mahmood in a similar light.After the discussion finished, one ally noted that Ms Mahmood “is a signposted politician, which is rare in politics”. Another attendee joked: “I think Tony has anointed his preferred leadership candidate.”Earlier, when introducing Sir Tony and Ms Mahmood onto the stage, Ryan Wain, the TBI’s political director, joked about “calling out the elephant in the room”. He said: “The words I keep hearing people talk about in the room, and use, are leadership. So I’m going to offer my own personal view.”Then, jokingly referring to Liverpool Football Club’s manager Arne Slot, instead of Sir Keir, he said: “I think he’s mishandled the Mo Salah situation, but he is here to stay for the long course.”
