New Home Secretary, same old failure to smash the gangs

The first full day in the job saw the new Home Secretary preside over large numbers of illegal migrants. According to press briefings the last Home Secretary was removed because she was failing to get a grip on migration. We read that the new one will take a tougher line and stem the numbers. So why no statement of intent? Why no announcement of how she will do this? You need to start as you mean to carry on. Facilitating the arrival of large numbers of people and scrambling around to find them hostels and HMOs as she did yesterday is not going to change things.

Some will say it is unfair to expect a new Home Secretary to hit the ground running. In normal circumstances you would give them a few days to read themselves into the job and to prepare something to tell Parliament. But this was not a normal appointment. The press reports say she was drafted in to replace the outgoing to be decisive and  to make a difference, to change the outcomes. As a senior member of the government involved in all the legal advice the new Home Secretary must already be up to speed on these most crucial of issues.

Some with strange old fashioned notions that being a Minister is a 9 to 5 office job five days a week will say yesterday was a Saturday. I can assure you as a Minister you are on call 7 days a week, you work weekends and if you have such a high profile key job as Home Secretary in a borders crisis you should visibly be in charge from Day 1.

Presumably the PM when he appointed her told her what was going wrong with the Home Office approach and told her what she had to mend. She would otherwise have asked diplomatically why the last Home Secretary was sent off with some  briefing against her . Surely she asked  what was expected of her. You would reckon  the two would  discuss briefly what to do next. You would expect the new Home Secretary to make an early statement to warn off the gangs and to tell the people thinking of coming why that would be a bad idea. Instead those planning their crossings and paying the gangs uninterrupted in France will have breathed a sigh of relief that nothing seems to have changed.

Let us hope she is behind the scenes preparing an early Statement to Parliament on how she will urgently change the law to deter the not so small boat brigades from coming.  Today would be a good day to get it agreed, ready for next week. It would also be a  good idea to tell the media that is happening.

She could start by apologising to the Conservative Opposition for voting down their well thought through amendments to Labour’s Immigration Bill, and bring this  forward as government proposals. She needs to explain why Labour repealed the belated measure legislated by the outgoing Conservative government to say no one coming by an illegal means could claim asylum on arrival. That was a necessary part of a deterrent, allied to somewhere like Rwanda  to send them to as soon as they arrived. That would have stopped the trade once up and running. The new government abolished both key parts of the policy. .

62 Comments

  1. Peter
    September 7, 2025

    Starmer himself is not keen on weekend working and likes to knock off promptly on Fridays. So he cannot expect his ministers to behave differently.

    Mahmood will not be worried by illegal arrivals. She is more concerned with ethnic rivalries between Afro Carribeans and Asians within her own constituency. etc Ed

    1. stephen phillips
      September 7, 2025

      Starmer observes the Sabbath on Friday evening but I suspect he is back in operation on Saturday morning

  2. Lifelogic
    September 7, 2025

    They are clearly not even trying to smash the gangs or even deter the illegal immigrants. Their incentives to attract them continue.

    Like Cameron, May, Boris & Sunak but even worse.

    Thank goodness we have people like Dr Aseem Malhotra speaking at the Reform conference on the corruption of medical science. See Dr John Campbell video of this. We have a similar problem with the vast corruption of so called “climate science”.

    1. Lifelogic
      September 7, 2025

      They have two deterrents for the illegal boat people:- 1. windy weather and 2. eventually make the UK so crowded, lawless and unpleasant they then decided not to come. Some other deterrent before this second one comes about might be nice!

      So at 3pm today the government are going to set all our phones to alarm us totally pointlessly can they just piss off and leave us alone please? Can we charge them with stealing our electricity, irritating us and wasting our time? They have such mad priorities! I wonder if this distraction will cause any crashes or accidents? Soon theu will have political message attached too!

      1. Wanderer
        September 7, 2025

        @LL. They are mad in many ways. In France it has leaked that the authorities have instructed hospitals to prepare for a potential large-scale military engagement in Europe by March 2026. Their Ministry of Health has directed regional health agencies to develop contingency plans for treating between 10,000 and 50,000 wounded French and allied soldiers over a period of 10 to 180 days. Perhaps our masters are getting ready to do something very stupid, that harms us?

        1. Lifelogic
          September 7, 2025

          Harms and distracts. Keep the population in fear or something Covid, Poverty, Wars, Climate Alarmism… then government promises to rescue or help them! Best if not real problems like Climate Alarmism then no action is needed and nearly all government incompetency, pot holes, food price increases, immigration problems… can all be blamed on “Climate”.

        2. Donna
          September 7, 2025

          When all else fails, declare a war. Why do you think we keep hearing about the need to quickly re-arm; create an EU Defence Pact etc?

          1. Lynn Atkinson
            September 7, 2025

            They have done, as predicted ‘ “TOLERANCE WILL REACH SUCH A LEVEL THAT INTELLIGENT PEOPLE WILL BE BANNED FROM THINKING SO AS NOT TO OFFEND THE IMBECILES.”
            FYODOR MIKHAILOVICH

      2. Sharon
        September 7, 2025

        LL Switch it off in Settings! I have!

      3. Sharon
        September 7, 2025

        LL
        Turn it off in Settings. I have!

      4. stephen phillips
        September 7, 2025

        Cellphones are an excellent resource in time of emergency and the government is correct to do a test.

        1. Donna
          September 8, 2025

          Perhaps the Government could have started by ASKING people to sign up for alerts if they want to receive them.
          I wasn’t asked, so I’ve blocked it.

    2. Peter Wood
      September 7, 2025

      Quite so LL. In a recent interview Ms Mahmood has already told us what is most important to her, and preventing illegal arrivals wasn’t among them, as with her boss. Continuation politics until these arrogant, legacy parties are removed.
      I struggle to reconcile the actions of this government with the objectives to defend, sustain and develop our society.

      1. Lifelogic
        September 7, 2025

        What did she say was important to her? Destroying the economy, paying money to Mauritius to take Chagos, pushing up energy costs with net zero, bringing in appalling back door blasphemy islamophobia laws and for just one religion, a zero deterrent criminal justice system, more political anti-free speech Connolly prisoners, more police armed arrests of comedy writers, more mad housing and employment laws…

        1. Lifelogic
          September 7, 2025

          More jobs for ever essentially parasitic lawyers, hr consultant, tax accountants and for assisting people to move overseas seems to be their main goal.

        2. Lifelogic
          September 7, 2025

          Calling anyone sane far right, killing free speech, taxing the productive to death, augmenting ever more feckless benefit claims, making work not worth it …?

        3. Bloke
          September 7, 2025

          If a God is as omnipotent as its believers claim, how can anyone harm it merely by jokes, adverse opinion and words? It is strange that one religion needs such protection just because some of its believers are prone to react by killing the ‘offender’, whereas other religions receive no such protection because they are tolerant, forgiving, and normally focus on fostering goodness.

          1. Lifelogic
            September 7, 2025

            No protection for people telling the truth indeed that can be rather dangerous but for religious any belief systems old or new like, men can become women or visa-versa, exaggerated climate alarmism or the all “vaccines” (even if they do net harm) are good lunacy then these views need protections!

          2. Lifelogic
            September 7, 2025

            I think God can probably manage toclook after him/herself if that is required – with the odd surgical lightning strike, earthquake or tsunami perhaps?

    3. Lifelogic
      September 7, 2025

      Some good news for Angela Rayner, it seems to be she will get tax free loss of office compensation as a minister, then again when she looses her seat in under 4 years more tax free pay offs and she can probably get the extra stamp duty back when her disposal or the trust property is complete (prob. when her child is over 18 shortly)

      But I am not a tax advisor, so she had better spend even more money tax and legal advice – the complexity is another tax and hassle on top of the actual tax!

      1. Lifelogic
        September 7, 2025

        Then perhaps the Lords for her and her £371+ daily tax free allowance on top of her various pensions.

        1. Peter
          September 7, 2025

          LL,
          Four posts in a row and fourteen out of fifty posts at the moment. You are on a roll.

      2. Lynn Atkinson
        September 7, 2025

        And lifelong Security. She could always join Reform. Seems they will take anyone.

        1. Lifelogic
          September 7, 2025

          Well Nadine Dorris is a fan of net zero and net zero zealot Boris, she was keen on all the net harm lockdowns and net harm vaccines and was heavily involved with the appalling online safety bill. Let us hope she has changed considerably. Though I did quite the bits of her book that I have read so far.

          Talking of the online safely bill:- To be prosecuted under section 179, a defendant must be shown to have known the information they transmitted to be false, and that they had an intention to cause non-trivial psychological or physical harm to those receiving the message. So would this include people saying the Covid Vaccines were unequivocally safe and effective? They are still jabbing some people! Can Hansard be safely put online with so may lies almost every day!

    4. Sir Joe Soap
      September 7, 2025

      The error both in our host’s post today and in policies of Conservative and Labour governments is that they try to work within existing structures and agreements. Reform however places the horse firmly in front of the cart. If the structure isn’t working ditch it and put a new one in place, be it for immigration, energy, health, whatever. It’s an approach which has been crying out to be implemented for 15:years and it’s where the electorate have finally arrived.

      1. Wanderer
        September 7, 2025

        @Sir Joe Soap. I hope you’re correct, but if they keep welcoming politicians jumping ship from other Parties who were instrumental in introducing appalling legislation (e.g. Nadine Dorries – Online Safety Act), they may become less willing to ditch it.

      2. Lifelogic
        September 7, 2025

        They will not find it easy even if they do get a large majority in 2029.

  3. Sakara Gold
    September 7, 2025

    Shabana Mahmood, the new Home Secretary, is said to want the boat people moved from hotels to army barracks, where they will not have access to young British girls to molest.

    If the ease at which the Palestine Action activists broke into RAF Brize Norton is anything to go by, the army barracks perimeter fences will need considerable renovation first

    Yesterday 1,000 people arrived in the UK by small boat over the course of the day. They were registered and then immediately taken to NHS hospitals where their health was checked. Doubtless those unfortunates languishing in A&E departments would have had their already long waits extended

    Labour still don’t get this. The public want the boat people STOPPED, not hidden away in army barracks somewhere out of view

    1. Lifelogic
      September 7, 2025

      Deterred from even setting off to the UK is what is needed!

    2. Donna
      September 7, 2025

      Oh Labour gets it (just like the Not-a-Conservative-Party got it).

      But they don’t WANT to. They are implementing Globalist policies intended to destroy the cohesion of western nations in order to create a One World Government, run by a selected Elite through Globalist Institutions, who do not have to deal with the inconvenient nuisance of getting themselves re-elected when they have implemented policies which “the peasants” don’t want.

      Jean-Claude Juncker summed it up very well “We know what we have to do; we just don’t know how to get re-elected when we’ve done it.”

      “The peasants” will be controlled by surveillance, digital ID and a Social Credit System.

      1. Lifelogic
        September 7, 2025

        Seems so!

      2. Sharon
        September 7, 2025

        Donna

        Indeed so! It’s becoming increasingly more obvious!

    3. Dave Andrews
      September 7, 2025

      Why are they taken to NHS hospitals? Why aren’t they taken to private hospitals instead, with the charities picking up the bill? That would relieve the overstretched NHS and over-taxed public.

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        September 7, 2025

        The Govt would pay the private bill – out of our taxes or worse, more borrowing on our credit card.

      2. stephen phillips
        September 7, 2025

        Unless they are clearly ill they should not be receiving any medical attention

        1. Lynn Atkinson
          September 7, 2025

          If they are clearly I’ll they should not be allowed to land!

    4. Mark
      September 9, 2025

      If the migrants are to be in the barracks will the army get the 4 star hotels, or will they be on the streets?

  4. Mick
    September 7, 2025

    In a recent interview Ms Mahmood has already told us what is most important to her, and preventing illegal arrivals wasn’t among them
    I’ve got News for her IT IS BLOODY IMPORTANT TO US, these career politicians are so blinkered as to what the people want and our biggest problem is this government and the sooner it’s gone the better not by 2029 or 2027 but hopefully next year when the voters kick there arses out of local government they will be forced to call a General Election 🤞

    1. MWB
      September 7, 2025

      Lib/Lab/Con have no interest in stopping immigration, and indeed, they positively welcome it. Johnson wanted to give an amnesty to all immgrants.

      Reply Both Conservatives and Reform do want to stop the illegals. Conservatives Deportation Bill would do it, so both parties need to press for that.

  5. Cheshire Girl
    September 7, 2025

    I dont believe the new Home Secretary will make a blind bit of difference to the numbers coming in. Its quite likely that they will increase, with the winter approaching, and the bad weather likely. Just shuffling people around wont make any difference. They talk tough, but do nothing. The whole thing is out of control, and they haven’t a clue what to do about it.

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      September 7, 2025

      They are her people.

    2. Ian B
      September 7, 2025

      @Cheshire Girl – correct. We have to get our heads around it is not just the Government that is complicit in the trade, it is the majority of our elected MP’s, their pals in the House of Lords, the taxpayer funded legal profession and then taxpayer funded so-called charities. It could of all been stopped years ago, with the ‘will’ of Parliament – they refused.
      The gravy train for this criminal human trafficking trade, is imminence. It would seem at the moment it is the taxpayer they all like to steal money from. The Chancellor, the Government with the backing of the rest of the UK’s so-called Political Structure is solidly behind this corrupt trade – simples otherwise it would have stopped.

      It makes tax infringement look petty, and that is probably why Parliament sees that situation(MP’s tax infringements) the same, just insignificant.

      1. Original Richard
        September 7, 2025

        Ian B :

        Correct.

  6. Donna
    September 7, 2025

    So, Two-Tier has a new Home Secretary in charge of smashing the gangs and stopping the invasion. Meanwhile the Mandarin ruling the Home Office and his legions of civil servants who are implementing the deliberate dismantling of our borders remain unchanged. The Who wrote a song which sums up the reality very well: Won’t get Fooled Again.

    The last line is “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”

    According to the Daily Telegraph, Mahmood is going to accommodate the criminal migrants in military barracks. That doesn’t sound like taking action to stop them coming, just accepting the reality that the hotels are going to have to go because the demonstrations aren’t going to stop and they run the risk that every time one of the criminals who is living a life of luxury at our expense commits a rape or sexual assault against a young girl there could be a riot.

    If Two-Tier thinks moving his Cabinet of Incompetents around is going to save him, he’s seriously deluded. Mene Mene Tekel Upsarhin. “God has numbered the days of your Kingdom. You have been weighed in the balance and found wanting.”

    1. Original Richard
      September 7, 2025

      “According to the Daily Telegraph, Mahmood is going to accommodate the criminal migrants in military barracks”

      Perhaps military training is the next step?

  7. formula57
    September 7, 2025

    “Surely she asked what was expected of her” – and surely she was given an answer but should she believe it? After all, Suella Braverman eventually found out Rishi Sunak did not want her to do the job set.

    I join you in regretting a lack of any statement yesterday from the new Home Secretary. It would have warmed the cockles of my heart to hear yet another in that office articulate an absolute determination to stop the boats.

  8. Barrie Emmett
    September 7, 2025

    As long as we advertise ourself as the land of milk and honey, they will keep coming. The dithering over the Rwanda initiative, which came late in the day, proved disastrous. Mind you Bojo was a PM who encouraged people to come here and Blair destroyed our nation years ago with his Supreme Court and ECHR writ into our lives.

  9. Christine
    September 7, 2025

    Isn’t this the same woman who fought and succeeded in stopping deportation flights where several of the failed asylum seekers went on to commit the most heinous crimes? Hasn’t she been seen carrying Palestinian placards? Expect to see many more Gaza refugees being flown into the UK for free NHS treatment, placed ahead of the British people, and fast-tracked visas issued to their students to study at our universities. It seems to me that Starmer is filling his cabinet with people whose main aim is to destroy this country.

  10. Ian B
    September 7, 2025

    From quotes attributed to the new Home Secretary yesterday, she appears to carry baggage, of race, religion and culture, as she is inferring she places her background above what some of us would expect of someone that acts for all people and the nation as a whole. Which is not what is expected. A bit like saying as a Socialist I will only support my Socialist brethren, my voters, or as a Tory I am only here to support those individuals that have Conservative views and voted for the Conservative Party.

    The UK Parliament and the Government it appoints is there to support the country and the people as a whole, its a horrendous balancing act, that art of which has been lost for the last 25 years or so where political ideology has been placed above the needs of the Nation and its People.

    1. Ian B
      September 7, 2025

      A lot of people were glad to see the back of the previous Deputy Prime Minister. Yet Parliament is happy and welcoming to those that damage the integrity of the House and all its MP’s. The reflection on standards of Parliament that we are presented with remains as it was before.

      The PM has taken on a new Deputy, someone who will be the de facto PM should something befall him. The concern there is of course 2TK is expressing his desire to have someone in power that hates, despises the UK and seeks to destroy it at every opportunity. The track record of fighting the UK and its People seem to have become ingrained in Parliament particularly those that parliamentary system promotes through the ranks.

      People without ability, expertise beyond the hate for the Nation and its People. No one wants to build, cause the UK to prosper always the opposite

  11. Robert Bywater
    September 7, 2025

    All correct. But don’t expect them (you know who) to take any notice. They are the masters now.

  12. Original Richard
    September 7, 2025

    There is absolutely no evidence of any intention to stop the invasion of unidentified young men of fighting age as demonstrated by the lack of any civil service personnel changes at the Home Office or the removal of the encouragements to come such as full board in a 4 star hotel or house, spending money, free entertainment, freedom to roam the streets and take tax-free jobs. As a start the RNLI and Border Force could be instructed to refuse to go out to collect those boats which are escorted into mid Channel by the French navy as these boats are clearly in no danger. And the illegal immigrants without identification should be housed in tents in a secure field. The PM’s “smash the gangs” is not the same as “stopping the invasion”. It could mean completely opening up the border so these gangs are put out of business. It should not be forgotten that the PM, before he was elected to Parliament, served on the executive committee of the Fabian Society, a far left movement, whose logo is a wolf in sheep’s clothing

  13. stephen phillips
    September 7, 2025

    It is ludicrous to demand that she make major pronouncements immediately.
    She needs to act quickly but not to panic

    Reply Starmer should tell her what to do as he was into the detail and he decided Cooper was not doing enough. They could simply adopt the Conservative draft Deportation Bill.

    1. Original Richard
      September 7, 2025

      Correct, Sir John. This isn’t a new problem! The Permanent Secretary at the Home Office knows what to do but just refuse to do it. The swapping of ministerial positions is just a delayng distraction.

  14. K
    September 7, 2025

    This appointment could not be more provocative given the tensions in the country at the moment.

    The daily arrivals by boat alone (not lorries, vans, at airports) are 40% more males than went to my large London comprehensive boy’s school.

    We are in grave peril.

    Next weekend may well be a turning point. In which direction, it is not clear.

    We are but one event away from something truly awful happening.

    1. Original Richard
      September 7, 2025

      Yes, you wonder what event needs to happen for this invasion to be halted.

  15. Keith from Leeds
    September 7, 2025

    While I have reservations about Reform, Nigel Farage seems to be the only MP who gets the anger at uncontrolled immigration. Labour’s reshuffle is joke with failed Ministers being move sideways instead of to the back benches.
    The PM is becoming a laughing stock. Who can take seriously anything he says?
    Thgis is a greedy, pathetic and inefficient government.

  16. Robert
    September 7, 2025

    ‘Smash the gangs’ was nothing more than an empty slogan. It’s becoming more apparent as time goes on that it was just an empty promise that, if nothing else, may have contributed to Labour’s election win last year. From Starmer’s viewpoint it served its purpose, but did and does absolutely nothing to reduce illegal migration.

  17. glen cullen
    September 7, 2025

    1097 criminals were illicitly shipped, into the UK yesterday on the 6th September from France… 1097 people without visa’s breaking the law

    1. Original Richard
      September 7, 2025

      When are they going to be put up in tents in a secure field? Why should we put them up in hotels and houses when the French put them up in bushes and hangers? Are the French not signed up to the ECHR? Does the UN not allow tents to be used as shelter for asylum seekers but only hotels and houses?

      1. glen cullen
        September 7, 2025

        The UK government is truly mad

  18. Peter D Gardner
    September 14, 2025

    Yes but, as Starmer’s Gang’s lawyer said in court, the illegal immigrants have a higher priority than Brits. Smashing the gangs is just cynical empty rhetoric etc ed

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