Deport Shabir Ahmed

Shabir Ahmed was the ringleader of the Rochdale grooming gang.

At the time, police identified 47 victims. A 2024 official independent review, however, declared that exploitation was much more widespread.

In 2012, Ahmed was convicted as the ringleader of the grooming gang, and of 30 counts of child rape, stretching from the late 90s throughout the 2000s.

The gang groomed and raped girls as young as 12. The girls were given alcohol and drugs, and gang raped in rooms above high street shops.

Almost all the men involved were from Pakistani Muslim backgrounds. Almost all the girls were working class white girls. The judge in the case said the victims were treated "as though they were worthless" because they were not part of the gang's "community or religion."

Ahmed was given a 22 year sentence for these crimes. Today, after just 14 years, he is being released. (He will serve the rest of his sentence on remand.)

Ahmed was born in Pakistan. He moved to Britain in the 1960s. He since gained British citizenship.

In 2012, under Section 40(2) of the British Nationality Act 1981, the then Home Secretary, Theresa May, stripped Ahmed of his citizenship.

Ahmed appealed this decision, but lost in both the Court of Appeal and even the European Court of Human Rights.

This Labour Government are claiming he cannot be deported. They cite two reasons:

• Section 7 of the Immigration Act 1971 exempts migrants from Commonwealth countries who arrived before 1 January 1973 from deportation.
• Pakistan is refusing to take him back.

We are calling on the Government to:

• Pass emergency legislation that repeals Section 7 of the Immigration Act 1971. All foreign or dual national grooming gang offenders must be deported (with dual nationals stripped of their British citizenship).
• Suspend all visas to the UK for Pakistani nationals, whether for visit, study, work or settlement, until the nation agrees to take Ahmed and its illegal migrants back.
  • Given we grant around 200,000 visas to Pakistan each year, the nation would soon agree to take him back.

Together, these measures would see Shabir Ahmed deported.