“Over my dead body.”
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood issued a furious four-word response after Reform UK suggested she would be more at home in Nigel Farage’s party than Labour.
Reform UK posted an AI-generated image of Mahmood sitting on her bed wearing Reform-branded pyjamas, with a smiling Farage poster on her wall.
The caption read: “Good morning, Shabana Mahmood.”
The post followed Mahmood’s announcement of plans to cut benefits for asylum seekers, deport refugees if home countries become safer, and remove more families with children.
Farage described the plan as “an audition to join Reform” but pointed out Labour has spent years attacking him over immigration controls.
Some Labour colleagues are strongly opposed to Mahmood’s proposals.
In response to the image, the Home Secretary wrote: “Over my dead body.”
Shabana Mahmood previously dismissed Farage’s invitation to join his party, adding that he could “sod off”.
She criticised the party’s policies: “The Reform Party currently has a policy to rip up indefinite leave to remain of those who have been long-term settled in our country.
“That is immoral. It’s deeply shameful, and it is the wrong policy.”
About 20 Labour MPs have publicly attacked Mahmood’s plans, with others expressing private concerns.
Stourbridge Labour MP Cat Eccles said: “It just feels that they are trying to just be seen to be doing something just to appease the electorate.
“And yes, we’re here to please voters, but I don’t think this is the right thing to do right now.”
Over my dead body. https://t.co/6rAhDTP3Th
— Shabana Mahmood MP (@ShabanaMahmood) November 19, 2025
Conservatives have offered to vote with the Government to support the changes if Labour MPs block them.
Labour MP Stella Creasy warned the plans would leave refugees in “a permanent sense of limbo”.
Colleague Nadia Whittome added it was “shameful that a Labour government is ripping up the rights and protections of people who have endured unimaginable trauma”.
Simon Opher, another Labour MP, said the party should “stop the scapegoating of immigrants because it’s wrong and cruel”, adding: “We should push back on the racist agenda of Reform rather than echo it.”
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch argued the measures do not go far enough. She said leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) was necessary to tackle the problem:
“The fact is, we have looked at this issue from every possible direction, and the reality is that any plan that doesn’t include leaving the ECHR as a necessary step is wasting time we don’t have.”
Nigel Farage welcomed the “strong language” from Shabana Mahmood but questioned:
“Will it survive her own backbenchers in a vote?”
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