Shabana Mahmood appointed Lord Chancellor, Justice Secretary in UK PM Starmer's cabinet

LONDON: British-Pakistani Kashmiri-origin Birmingham MP Shabana Mahmood was named as Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice in the new Labour government, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office confirmed on Friday.

Mahmood was the fourth former shadow minister to walk into Downing Street following Starmer's appointment as prime minister. She will be the first observant Muslim and only the second woman to assume the ancient office of lord chancellor.

Her parents hail from Mirpur, Azad Kashmir. She is a fluent speaker of Urdu and Mirpuri.

Mahmood was born and brought up in Birmingham and called to the bar at Grays Inn after studying on a scholarship. In practice, she specialised in professional indemnity cases. She was appointed shadow justice secretary in September last year. 

Her previous shadow ministerial roles included spells at home affairs, business and as shadow chief secretary to the Treasury.

Mahmood spoke emotionally as she was declared the winner on Friday morning. She thanked her mum and dad and her supporters for electing her again but she aimed at those who targeted her during the campaign. 

She said: “A lot will be written about this campaign and it should be. This was a campaign of harassment and intimidation, of me, my family and my supporters who knocked on the doors. Bravely, they continued. I want to give my deepest thanks to everyone who kept going. This wasn’t just an assault on this. This was an assault on democracy. British politics must soon wake up to what happened at this election in Ladywood and a handful of seats across the country. While it will be always acceptable to disagree passionately, it is never acceptable to intimidate and threaten. We must never accept anyone terrifying us. We must never accept physical threats and intimidation.”

Mahmood said this in reference to the similar intimidation faced by Naz Shah by her opponents.

Speaking emotionally, Mahmood said she wanted to share what matters “deeply to me and my family”. She said: “It is never acceptable to deny anyone their faith, to brand them an infidel. I know what a Muslim looks like, a Muslim looks like me. I know what Muslim values are. Muslim values are mine and they are British values too: decency, respect, kindness."

Mahmood then challenged her opponents who subjected her to the hate campaign and said: “They thought they could intimidate us but they couldn’t. They thought they could silence us but they couldn’t. They thought they could beat us but they couldn’t. We campaigned for change in our constituency and nationally, for the change. I want to thank the people of Ladywood for rejecting the politics of division and embracing a politics of hope.”

Responding to boos by her opponents, she added: “Nobody has ever succeeded in shouting me down. I know we have bridges to rebuild. I am thankful to the community. We must deliver the change we have promised, change of the 14 years of misrule of the Tory govt that has left its devastating mark on this constituency and so many others.”

She acknowledged the local issues of poverty and unemployment etc, but said she was powerless as there was a Tory party govt in the centre. She said it took Starmer nearly two years to change the Labour Party — away from the party it became under Jeremy Corbyn — and now “we have the chance to serve the country again. The road will be hard and long.”

In an interview with Geo News last week, Shabana Mahmoodhas shared that in her 14 years of public life as a Kashmiri Pakistani-origin Muslim woman in the UK, she has encountered intimidation and harassment, emphasising that being a Muslim woman in public life is challenging.

She told Geo News that she had not previously discussed such harassment because she did not want people “especially our sisters, daughters, to perceive politics negatively and be deterred by the challenges of intimidation and harassment”.

She emphasised that in a free democracy, everyone should participate in elections free from fear of harassment or abuse. Pushing women out of the democratic process through intimidation is unacceptable, she said, stressing the importance of candidates freely standing for election and voters casting their votes without any form of coercion.

In an interview with Geo News, she spoke of the deep pride and honour she feels in representing a minority faith and ethnicity in public life, foreseeing a future where these challenges can be openly addressed.

Mahmood has served as the head of the Labour Party's election campaign during by-elections over the past two years and has been a member of the Labour Party's National Executive Committee since 2016, playing a key role in preparing the party manifesto for the 4 July elections.

The Oxford graduate was first elected on the Labour ticket in 2010 and has been winning ever since. She won the seat with 15,558 votes. Her main opponent, who stood mainly on the Gaza issue, secured 12,137 votes. She had won the last election with a majority of 28,000 votes.

Mahmood is expected to be sworn in as lord chancellor at the Royal Courts of Justice ahead of the opening of parliament on 17 July.