Shamima Begum loses legal case over British citizenship and return to UK

Published

2 years ago

February 22, 2023

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Shamima Begum, who left London when she was 15 to travel to Syria and join Islamic State, has lost a legal case over her British citizenship, meaning she will not be able to return to the UK.

Begum had her British citizenship stripped from her in 2019, on national security grounds by then-home secretary Sajid Javid.

Now aged 23, Begum brought a challenge against the Home Office over the decision to revoke her citizenship, however, it was dismissed by a specialist tribunal.

The Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) concluded there was “credible suspicion” that Begum was trafficked to Syria for “sexual exploitation” and that there were “arguable breaches of duty” by state bodies in allowing her to travel to the country.

But Mr Justice May said in a summary of the decision that the existence of this suspicion was “insufficient” for her to succeed on her arguments that the deprivation of her British citizenship failed to respect her human rights, adding that given she was now in Syria, the home secretary was not compelled to facilitate her return nor stopped from using “deprivation powers”.

The Home Office has said it is “pleased” with the ruling, while Mr Javid said he “welcomes” it. Begum remains in a refugee camp in northern Syria.

At the five-day tribunal hearing last year, Begum’s lawyers said that she was “recruited, transported, transferred, harboured and received in Syria for the purposes of ‘sexual exploitation’ and ‘marriage’ to an adult male”.

They also argued that the Home Office unlawfully failed to consider that she travelled to Syria and remained there “as a victim of child trafficking”.

It has repeatedly asserted she would be a threat to public safety if she is allowed to return to the UK.

On Wednesday, the appeal was dismissed on all nine grounds even though SIAC found there was a “credible suspicion” that Begum had been trafficked to Syria.

Giving the decision of the tribunal, Mr Justice Jay said that “reasonable people will differ” over the circumstances of Begum’s case.

In its ruling, the panel said: “Essentially, and from the perspective of those responsible for the trafficking, the motive for bringing her to Syria was sexual exploitation to which, as a child, she could not give a valid consent”.

The commission recognised the “considerable force” in submissions advanced on behalf of Begum that the Home Secretary’s conclusion that she travelled voluntarily to Syria was “as stark as it is unsympathetic”.

Begum’s looking for a way out of strange purgatory but it looks like this is where she’ll stay

Since Shamima Begum emerged from the ashes of the so-called “ISIS Caliphate” in 2019, she has been in a Syrian detention camp and what she describes as “an unending sentence” that is “worse than prison”.

It seems that is where she will stay.

Lawyers for Begum essentially tried to make this a moral question and that rather than being seen as a traitor and a threat to the UK, she was more a manipulated schoolgirl, who was groomed into bad choices, in the same way, children groomed into county lines drug dealing are now recognised as victims of modern slavery.

Her lawyers have argued that when Sajid Javid revoked her citizenship, he had not taken into account that she was “a trafficked person,” for the purpose of sexual exploitation as an ISIS Bride.

The court was also told that she had been left ‘stateless’ and would face the death penalty if sent to Bangladesh, her parents’ country of origin.

However, government lawyers told the hearing that she went to Syria with her “eyes wide open” and that whatever the circumstances Begum remained a threat to the UK.

Today the special immigration appeals commission agreed with them.

Shamima is just one of many who had been looking for a way out of this strange purgatory. More than 100 people were stripped of their citizenship after going to Syria or Iraq to join the terrorist organisation.

Even if she had been able to reverse the decision it is worth remembering that several British women detained in Syria still have British citizenship but have not been repatriated.

Mr Justice Jay said: “Further, there is some merit in the argument that those advising the Secretary of State see this as a black and white issue, when many would say that there are shades of grey.”

Speaking after the ruling one of Begum’s lawyers, Daniel Furner, said the legal fight is “nowhere near over”, while lawyer Gareth Pierce added that “there’s no limit to the challenges” that can be undertaken.

Begum and two other east London schoolgirls travelled to Turkey and then to Syria to join the Islamic State terror group in February 2015.

In 2019, she was found at a Syrian refugee camp nine months pregnant and told the media she wished to return to Britain, the country where she was born.

In a statement, a Home Office spokeswoman said: “The government’s priority remains maintaining the safety and security of the UK and we will robustly defend any decision made in doing so.”

Steve Valdez-Symonds, Amnesty International UK’s refugee and migrant rights director, described the Shamima Begum ruling as a “very disappointing decision”.

When Sky News last spoke to Begum in 2021 in Syria, she said she didn’t hate the UK, just her life at the time she left to join IS, and described living under the caliphate as “hell, hell on earth”.

Begum rejected accusations she carried out atrocities as part of IS as “all completely false”. She also added she expected to go to prison if she was allowed back into the UK.

UK

Kemi Badenoch needs to pick her battles – and decide how dirty she wants to get

Published

11 hours ago

December 27, 2024

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Kemi Badenoch needs to pick her battles - and decide how dirty she wants to get

Never wrestle with a pig. You get dirty. And besides, the pig likes it.

Looking at the festive ding-dong that’s broken out between Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage, you do wonder if the Tory leader should take on board this famous quote – because there was only ever going to be one winner from this spat.

The Reform UK leader has spent the thick end of three decades dragging his political opponents into fights that ultimately benefit his cause. This is no different.

What would have been a relatively low-key Christmas stunt has been elevated into literal front page news.

Reform UK insiders say that, in turn, is driving more people to the party and pushing up their member count further.

Part of this is down to news editors grabbing on to any bit of politics that’s around during the quiet period between Christmas and New Year.

Why Badenoch and her team didn’t clock this and hold back will likely bewilder some in her party.

An argument the Tories should have swerved

What’s more, the Tory leader is also currently on the back foot regarding her central accusation that the Reform membership number is fake.

Reform agreed to show Sky News details of their account on NationBuilder – a platform that manages memberships and donations for many political parties.

The number of active memberships in the account portal matched the figure on the ticker – with their website count growing in size shortly after the NationBuilder tally increased.

Sky News also conducted its own analysis on the ticker and found nothing suspicious as it stands (read the full analysis here).

Kemi Badenoch has said Reform changed the coding when people began to point out the alleged discrepancy, but has yet to provide any evidence to back this up.

Either way, this is still an argument the Tories should probably have swerved.

All politicians need to pick their battles

Yes, signed-up members mean more income for a party, but they don’t necessarily translate into wider electoral success. After all, Labour’s membership surged under Jeremy Corbyn, but he still lost two elections.

But that’s not to say both main parties shouldn’t be looking very closely in their rearview mirror at Reform.

The party’s reaction to this row shows a far more professional behind-the-scenes operation than the previous, more ramshackle incarnations of the Farage-led political machine.

Talk to long time allies of the Reform leader, and even they sound somewhat surprised by how slick their project has got.

They also point to electoral milestones on the horizon where the party’s results at the ballot box can be objectively tracked – beginning with May’s local elections next year and running through the Welsh Assembly vote in 2026.

There’ll be many more attempts by Nigel Farage to wrestle with his political opponents before then.

The task for the Tory and indeed Labour leaders is to pick their fights and judge how dirty they are prepared to get.

UK

Nigel Farage threatens legal action if Kemi Badenoch doesn’t apologise for saying membership ticker was ‘fake’

Published

12 hours ago

December 27, 2024

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Nigel Farage threatens legal action if Kemi Badenoch doesn't apologise for saying membership ticker was 'fake'

Nigel Farage has threatened to take legal action against Tory leader Kemi Badenoch if she does not apologise for accusing him of publishing a “fake” ticker showing Reform UK’s membership increasing to overtake the Conservatives.

The Reform UK leader has reacted furiously to Ms Badenoch’s assertion that he was “manipulating [his] own supporters” with a ticker that is “coded to tick up automatically” after it showed the insurgent right-wing party had gone past 131,680 members – the number of eligible Conservative Party members in its leadership election in the autumn.

He is demanding an apology from Ms Badenoch for the “accusations of fraud and dishonesty” that he labelled “disgraceful”, and said he is “not going to take it lying down”.

Asked by Sky News in a call with journalists if he is going to sue the Tory leader for libel, Mr Farage said: “I’m going to take some action in the next couple of days. I’ve got to decide exactly what it is, but I’m certainly not going to take it lying down.”

“I think it’s an absolutely outrageous thing for her to have said,” he continued. “I know she’s got a very bad temper. I know she’s well known for lashing out at people, but I am not at all happy, and I’m going to take some action.”

He added that he will confirm within two days exactly what this action will be if she does not apologise for the “intemperate outburst”.

Analysis: Badenoch needs to pick her battles

Reform showed Sky News the coding used to link the ticker to the member count within their account on the platform NationBuilder. The demonstration provided strong evidence that the ticker was not automated. Scroll down for the full analysis.

A Tory source told Sky News: “Fake Farage is clearly rattled that his Boxing Day Publicity Stunt is facing serious questions over a fake clock and hundreds of ‘members’ seemingly joining in the middle of the night.

“Like most normal people around the UK, Kemi is enjoying Christmas with her family and looking forward to taking on the challenges of renewing the Conservative Party in the New Year.”

‘It’s a fake’

The row started after Reform UK said on Boxing Day that it officially had more members than the Conservative Party, which Mr Farage, party leader and MP for Clacton-on-Sea, hailed as a “historic moment”, describing his party as “the real opposition”.

Reform UK also shared a video of the membership tracker being projected on to the Conservative Party headquarters in London.

But Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch accused the party of issuing misleading figures: “Manipulating your own supporters at Xmas eh, Nigel?. It’s not real. It’s a fake… [the website has been] coded to tick up automatically.”

Posting on X, she added that the Tories had “gained thousands of new members since the leadership election”.

Reform UK hit back at Ms Badenoch, publishing a screenshot of an online register claiming to show “active memberships”.

Do Reform’s claims stack up?

Ben van der Merwe

Data journalist

@_bvdm

Some tickers are indeed “coded to tick up automatically”. This is often done when the data isn’t updated regularly and so, in the meantime, the counter is made to increase at realistic intervals.

Any ticker showing government debt, unemployment or global temperatures, for instance, is almost certainly going up at a regular, pre-programmed rate.

Sky News analysed Reform UK’s ticker to see if this was the case for their membership ticker.

Specifically, we looked at a video posted by Nigel Farage on X, which shows an uninterrupted view of the counter from 4pm on Christmas Day to 2pm on Boxing Day.

The chart above shows the number of new members added every 30 minutes during that 22-hour stretch.

What we can see is that it varies a lot – very few people join overnight, and there is a big surge from around 11am on Boxing Day.

This was around the time that it was first reported Reform UK had acquired more members than the Conservatives, which provided a burst of publicity to the party.

If the ticker was simply increasing automatically, we would expect a much flatter line.

Political parties in the UK aren’t required to reveal their membership numbers, much less provide data that can be independently verified.

However, Reform UK did show Sky News its account on Nation Builder, an independent platform widely used by political parties and campaigns to track and manage their memberships.

Sky News was able to verify that the number of memberships in Reform’s NationBuilder account matched the number presented on their on-site ticker.

The Conservative Party had 131,680 members as of the November leadership contest, while Labour had 366,604 members as of March 2024.

Reform UK chair Zia Yusuf also waded into the row, claiming that people whose memberships of the Tory party had lapsed voted in the autumn leadership election that saw Ms Badenoch elected to the role.

In a call with journalists earlier, he repeated the assertion, and after putting out a call on social media for people to contact him if they had voted in the leadership election but are no longer party members, he said he has received “just so many” that he has not yet been able to verify their claims.

Ms Badenoch and the Conservative Party have been contacted for comment.

Reform UK has said it will submit to an audit of its membership numbers by one of the “big four” accountancy firms if the Tories do the same.

Farage gets personal

Speaking to journalists earlier, Mr Farage was very critical of Ms Badenoch personally, saying her claim that their membership number ticker had been faked “reflects her personality”.

He labelled her “aggressive” and “liable to lashing out”, and said he thinks she wrote her tweet out of a “slight sense of anger”.

“She’s got to fully disprove this, and she’s going to find life a lot more difficult and bitterly regret putting this out on Boxing Day afternoon,” he added.

UK

Man charged with attempted murder after group hit by car in London’s West End on Christmas Day

Published

15 hours ago

December 27, 2024

admin

Man charged with attempted murder after group hit by car in London's West End on Christmas Day

A man has been charged with four counts of attempted murder after a car collided with a group of people in London’s West End on Christmas Day.

Anthony Gilheaney, 30, will appear before Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Friday and has also been charged with causing serious injury by driving whilst disqualified, driving a motor vehicle dangerously and possession of a bladed article in a public place, the Metropolitan Police said.

Four people were taken to hospital after the incident, with one in a life-threatening condition.

Metropolitan Police officers were called to reports of a crash and a car driving on the wrong side of the road at 12.45am.

The incident occurred outside the Sondheim Theatre, which is the London home of the musical Les Miserables.

Shaftesbury Avenue is at the heart of London‘s West End and the city’s theatre district.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Stuart Cundy said the suspect was arrested within minutes of the incident “in the early hours of Christmas Day”.

“Since then, investigators have worked tirelessly to build the case and have today charged Anthony Gilheaney with four counts of attempted murder.

“Our thoughts now are with the victims, one of which remains in critical condition in hospital.”

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