Remove home secretary Mahmood and rip up her asylum plans, says Alf Dubs

Shabana Mahmood should be moved out of the Home Office and her asylum policies of “performative cruelty” ripped up by Andy Burnham’s administration, Alf Dubs has said. The veteran Labour peer, who came to the UK aged six in 1939 fleeing the persecution of Jews in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, said the home secretary’s talents “would be better used elsewhere in the cabinet”. Instead, an expected Burnham-led government could champion “human rights, compassion, fairness and equality” while advocating control of UK borders, Dubs said. Mahmood has been attempting to soften some of her hardline plans. She has been involved in talks to exempt care workers from the proposed changes to “indefinite leave to remain”. She is now embroiled in a standoff with Keir Starmer over the future of the immigration minister Mike Tapp , who is accused of passing off the plans as his own. Burnham is widely expected to become the prime minister as soon as 17 July after Starmer resigned from office this week. Asked if Mahmood should remain in post, Dubs told the Guardian: “I think her talents would be better used elsewhere in cabinet to allow the new PM free rein to put his own stamp on asylum and immigration policy. “At a time when the party needs unity, I do not believe that Shabana Mahmood’s policies represent the right approach.” Shabana Mahmood. …