Anger after Corbyn says jihadi bride should ‘come home and be supported’
She has lost her British citizenship
THE leader of Britain’s Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, was criticised last night after saying Islamic State bride Shamima Begum should be allowed back into the UK and given the ‘support that she needs’. Mr Corbyn accused UK home secretary Sajid Javid of a ‘very extreme manoeuvre’ in stripping Begum of her British citizenship.
Mr Javid blocked the 19-yearold’s return earlier this week, saying that she poses a risk to the security of the UK. Begum, who left east London to join Isis in 2015, has repeatedly begged from a Syrian refugee camp to be allowed to return to the UK.
Mr Corbyn said making the teenager stateless is ‘not the right thing to do’.
He said she has ‘a lot of questions to answer’ but should be allowed to return to the UK.
He said: ‘She was born in Britain, she has that right to remain in Britain. On that return she must face a lot of questions about everything she’s done. And at that point any action may or may not be taken.’
He criticised Mr Javid, saying: ‘The idea of stripping anyone of their citizenship when they’re born in Britain is a very extreme manoeuvre. I question the right of the home secretary to have these powers.’
Begum, who gave birth to a son last Sunday, pleaded with British politicians last night to have ‘mercy’ on her and said she is ‘willing to change’.
She told Sky News: ‘I am struggling to get my supplies in right now. I have to run around to take care of my son now, when I am sick. I would like them to reevaluate my case with a bit more mercy in their heart. I am willing to change.’
Begum was stripped of her British citizenship on the basis that she is entitled to live in Bangladesh because her parents were born there.
But the Bangladeshi government said she does not hold dual citizenship and ‘there is no question of her being allowed to enter’ the country. Should she return to the UK, the government there would have to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds keeping her under surveillance.
The UK Home Office has spent nearly £5million (€5.75million) keeping 23 terror suspects under restrictions. Annual legal bills have been as high as £1million (€1.15million), while accommodation has cost as much as £70,000 (€80,000) a year per person.
She is ‘willing to change’ ‘Out of touch with the public mood’
Last night, Tory MPs accused the Labour leader of being ‘out of touch with the public mood’ and of ‘supporting those who are against us’.
Tim Loughton, who sits on the UK’s Home Affairs Committee, said: ‘We do not need to be told by an IRA sympathiser that we are not behaving justly towards someone who has shown no remorse for what she has done and still doesn’t understand the seriousness of her actions.’ Conservative MP James Cartlidge said it was ‘quite extraordinary’ that Mr Corbyn was ‘more than happy to support’ Begum’s return to the UK.
He added: ‘We all know she is not returning home because of remorse or a sense that she has done something wrong; she is doing it because we have successfully defeated Isis. It is not extreme to seek to protect British people by not allowing into the country those who potentially pose a threat to it.’
He also said Mr Corbyn’s ‘first instinct’ was ‘to support those who are against us rather than to stand up [for] Britain’.