Shabana Mahmood

Shaban Mahmood in 2020

Shabana Mahmood (Urdu: شبانہ محمود; born 17 September 1980) is a British Labour Party politician and barrister who has served as Home Secretary since September 2025. Previously she was Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice from July 2024. Mahmood has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Birmingham Ladywood since 2010 when she became one of the UK's first female Muslim MPs, along with Rushanara Ali and Yasmin Qureshi.

Quotes

• My faith is the centrepoint of my life and it drives me to public service, it drives me in the way that I life my life and I see my life.
  I believe that life is a gift from God, but it's also a test. I feel like I've been very blessed in my life. But every blessing is a test. It's not just something you bank for yourself. You should almost fear your success because now you have to answer for it. You have to use it for good. And that's how I think about my political career.
• [On her decision not to serve in Jeremy Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet] I don't like anything that smells of fundamentalism in any way, religious or political or ideological, it doesn't really matter what it is, in the end.
  It's quite authoritarian in nature, and in my own life experience of people that are most intransigent and the most prescriptive about what everyone else can say and think and do tend not to be the best of people themselves.
  • From an interview, as cited in "Faith, Gaza and racism, by Labour MP who could become justice secretary", The Sunday Times (30 March 2024).

• Hashtag movements are sometimes used to shut down debate and often many women have had to go to court, usually in employment tribunals, in order to clarify their rights to free speech.
  To clarify their right to believe that for example because you referenced JK Rowling, clarify their right to say that biological sex is real and is immutable – a position that I also agree with.
  • From an interview, as cited in Genevieve Holl-Allen "Shadow justice secretary agrees with JK Rowling over gender critical views", The Telegraph (22 April 2024)

• I know what a Muslim looks like. A Muslim looks like me. I know what Muslim values are. Muslim values are mine.
  • From her acceptance speech after the votes cast were read out, as cited in Amy Gibbons "Ashworth loses seat to pro-Palestine independent in shock defeat", The Telegraph (5 July 2024).
  • Mahmood, whose previous majority/share of votes was much reduced by a candidate opposing Labour's policies on the war in Gaza, faced intimidation during the campaign.

• Mine is the patriotism of Orwell. Pride in a country that is forever changing, while also, ineffably, always the same. It is a love of this country as an open, tolerant and generous place. But that broad vision of who we are is increasingly disputed. Patriotism, a force for good, is turning into something smaller. Something more like ethno-nationalism, which struggles to accept that someone who looks like me, and has a faith like mine, can truly be English or British.
  • Speech at the Labour Party Conference (September 2025) [1]

• AI and technology can be transformative to the whole of the law and order space.
  When I was in justice, my ultimate vision for that part of the criminal justice system was to achieve, by means of AI and technology, what Jeremy Bentham tried to do with his Panopticon. That is that the eyes of the state can be on you at all times.
  Similarly, in the world of policing, in particular, we’ve already been rolling out live facial recognition technology, but I think there’s big space here for being able to harness the power of AI and tech to get ahead of the criminals, frankly, which is what we’re trying to do.
  • Interview with Sir Tony Blair (December 2025), quoted in Charles Hymas, "'Minority Report policing' to catch criminals before they strike", The Telegraph (18 January 2026) and in Hamish Morrison, "Shabana Mahmood proposes AI 'Panopticon' system of state surveillance", The National (20 January 2026)