Government Moves to Deport Rochdale Grooming Ringleader
The home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, set out plans to deport Shabir Ahmed, the freed ringleader of the Rochdale grooming gang, jailed for 22 years in 2012 and recently released on licence. Ahmed was stripped of his British citizenship after his conviction, leaving him only Pakistani nationality, but a 1971 law bars the removal of some long-resident Commonwealth citizens. Mahmood aims to close that loophole through the immigration Bill; Pakistan, however, has shown no willingness to take him back.
The case is a vivid illustration of why deportation is so often easier to promise than to deliver. Even a man stripped of citizenship after one of the country’s most notorious abuse scandals cannot simply be removed: an old statute protecting decades-settled Commonwealth arrivals stands in the way, and no country can be forced to accept a deportee who has renounced its nationality. Closing the legal loophole is within Parliament’s power, and the Conservatives have tabled an amendment to force the point; making Pakistan accept him is not, and the government’s only real leverage is the threat of visa sanctions of the kind used against other reluctant states. The politics are potent across the spectrum, which is why Burnham too has backed the move. Watch whether the loophole is closed in the Bill, whether Islamabad shifts, and whether the case becomes a template for other stalled deportations.