It is possible for Britain to change course, but it depends on the public electing more right-leaning members of Parliament.
Shabir Ahmed, formerly a welfare-rights officer for a local government in England and ringleader of a grooming gang, was convicted in 2012 of 30 child rape offenses and ordered to serve concurrent sentences of 22 and 19 years. Ahmed was banned from the courtroom in Liverpool because he called the judge a “racist bastard” (naturally), but he recently got lucky in the British justice system: He is scheduled to be released early in July after spending only 14 years behind bars. To phrase that alternatively, he served about six months for each child rape offense.
Ahmed led the gang that sexually abused girls as young as twelve, according to the Guardian; that means he spent just a bit more time locked up than some of his victims had been alive. The police publicly stated in 2012 “as many as 50 girls” may have been victims of Ahmed’s gang.
Nevertheless, he’s getting out — of prison, not the country. The government’s Victim Contact Scheme recently informed Ahmed’s victims that he will be released soon. He will have to satisfy various conditions upon his release, such as following a curfew, registering on the sex offender’s list, and refraining from contacting children. Additionally, Ahmed will be subject to an exclusion zone covering the entire borough of Rochdale until June 10, 2034. He will be imprisoned immediately for breaking any of the terms.
Even though Britain has essentially drawn a border around an area where Ahmed cannot enter, it “cannot” deport him. Ahmed immigrated to the United Kingdom from Pakistan, and although his British citizenship was revoked while he served time, provisions in the Immigration Act of 1971 protect Commonwealth citizens from removal if they arrived before 1973 and have lived in the United Kingdom for at least five years before the deportation was considered — both of which reportedly apply to Ahmed. (The Daily Mail also reports that he has renounced his Pakistani citizenship, but I couldn’t independently verify that, and other outlets have omitted this detail in their coverage.)
Pretty much any time I write something about the United Kingdom, I want to bash my head against the wall. Everything that occurs there is unserious and incensing. Can a country claim to have a functioning justice system when the leader of a child prostitution ring gets years shaved off his sentence? What does it mean when a nation will not eject the criminal whose citizenship was stripped for raping children? I am definitely feeling the temptation to become a fatalistic doomsayer.
But I have to remind myself of an important point, one that I previously emphasized in a magazine piece not too long ago: The U.K. has a sovereign parliament, so it can do whatever it wants with just a simple majority vote. If Parliament passes a bill that says Shabir Ahmed is to be trapped in a large cage with hungry wolves, then that shall be his fate. All the rhetoric about what “can” and “cannot” be done — with respect to immigration or any other matter — is ultimately an expression of Westminster’s will, not its ability. (I’m not the only person to make this argument.) It is ultimately possible for Britain to change course, but it depends on the public electing more right-leaning members of Parliament who are willing to grab control of the steering wheel.