Tory chairman details draft legislation to deport grooming gang ringleader Shabir Ahmed: 'Utterly disgraceful!'

Kevin Hollinrake has detailed draft legislation created by the Conservatives to deport Rochdale grooming gang ringleader Shabir Ahmed.

Speaking to GB News, the Tory Party Chairman hit out at the "utterly disgraceful" crimes of Ahmed and declared he has "no place in the UK".

Ahmed, 73, was released from prison last week after serving 14 years of his 19-year conviction in 2012 for multiple rape and sexual offences against young girls.

However, the Rochdale ringleader has dodged deportation due to the 1971 Immigration Act, which forbids the removal of a small group of Commonwealth citizens who arrived in the UK more than 50 years ago.

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Discussing the case on GB News, Mr Hollinrake explained the proposed Tory amendment to the Immigration Act 1971 and the UK Border Act 2007 in order to deport Ahmed.

He said: "There's some legislation going through Parliament now, a Borders Bill that we're keen to amend to be able to get rid of people like Shabir Ahmed.

"This monster needs kicking out the country. There's lots of different ways we can do it, we're tabling an amendment and I'm sure we would support some emergency legislation."

Mr Hollinrake stressed that Government has previously "legislated in a day" in support of British Steel, and would "support" any emergency legislation put forward.

He told GB News: "Of course, this man must be kicked out of Britain for what he's done, but also the nature of the crimes, the fact that this was a predator, that encouraged others to do the same, and they were targeting people based on race, young white girls based on their race. Utterly disgraceful.

"This man has no place to be in the UK, he should be deported.

"And if Pakistan will have him back, we need to apply pressure to Pakistan as we have set out to do in our own borders plan, which says countries that will comply with the things that need to be done, like deportation. Then we can apply sanctions to them."

Challenging Mr Hollinrake on the amendment, GB News host Christopher Hope questioned whether the amendment would "unpick protections" for others, including the Windrush generation.

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Mr Hollinrake responded: "Well, it doesn't appear to be beyond the wit of man to be able to draft some legislation that still protects people with a legal right to be here, but can kick monsters like this out.

"I'm sure there is a way to do that, and there's clever legal drafting that would deal with this quite easily, I would have thought. But we'll find a way, and we need this person kicked out of Britain."

Quizzed on the Government's defence spending ahead of the Nato summit, the Tory Chairman argued that Labour must "reform the welfare budget" and "spend more" to fill the black hole.

He said: "We need to spend a lot more. There's about a £13billion black hole in the defence budget right now, according to the Chief of Defence in the UK. We need to find that money.

"And we've promised to work alongside the Keir Starmer or Andy Burnham when he takes over to find that money. And the way to find it quickly is to reform the welfare budget. We can work together, cross-party, to find this money. We need this money now, not in a few years time."

A Home Office spokesman said: "We are committed to doing everything possible to deport foreign national offenders and are clear they should have no place in this country.

"As previous governments have found, this necessarily involves the agreement of the receiving country, which has not always been possible in some countries.

"But we are currently working with colleagues across Government to explore all possible options to deport this vile criminal."

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