Shabir Ahmed, the leader of the Rochdale rape gang, is for now a free man, living in the UK, having served 14 years after being convicted of 30 child rape offences. Ahmed is a British citizen – he gave up his Pakistani citizenship. As the law stands, he can not be deported because of provisions in the Immigration Act 1971. The law states that because Ahmed arrived in the UK before 1973, and lived here for more than five years before his deportation was considered, he is immune from deportation. 

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This, naturally, has provoked great outrage, with Andy Burnham having said he wants the home and foreign secretaries to do everything they can in order to deport Ahmed. I understand that on Monday the Home Secretary is expected to announce changes to the law which will allow us to deport Shabir Ahmed and men like him. This is a very significant development, for while Labour aren’t using words like ‘denaturalising’, that is what they are doing – Ahmed’s British citizenship will be shown to be a paper fiction, and the state will seek to send him ‘home’ to a land he hasn’t lived in for over 60 years. We should welcome........

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