LONDON, Nov 23, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - Shabana Mahmood is the straight-talking, combative interior minister who is overhauling Britain's asylum system and whose politics have been shaped by her Muslim faith and upbringing as a daughter of Pakistani-origin immigrants.

Dubbed "The Terminator" by The Spectator magazine and "the new hard woman of British politics" by Sky News, Mahmood is unapologetic about her attempts to slash migration to the UK.

"You may not always like what I do," the 45-year-old warned fellow Labour MPs at the ruling party's annual conference in September, shortly after she was appointed Home Secretary.

Mahmood, a former barrister, last week unveiled plans to cut protections for refugees, end automatic benefits for asylum seekers and extend the time before some regular migrants can apply for permanent status.

She said record levels of irregular migration were "tearing our country apart" and insisted her proposals would help "restore order and control".

Mahmood rejects accusations from lawmakers on the left that she is "stoking division by using immoderate language".

She believes soaring support for the hard-right, in part due to a failure to stop small boat arrivals of migrants to England, threatens people of colour.

In a stunning incident in parliament this week, she revealed she was "regularly" called a term of racist abuse long directed at people of South Asian origin, and "told to go back home".

"It is I who knows, through my personal experience and that of my constituents, just how divisive the issue of asylum has become."

The 45-year-old was born and raised in the central English city of Birmingham, which has a large South Asian-origin community, to parents with roots in Kashmir.

Mahmood was introduced to politics at a young age -- her father was a local Labour party organiser who would include his daughter as he talked tactics with other members over tea and samosas.

"Shabana would let them know exactly what to do, and when to do it," former deputy Labour leader Tom Watson, who was among the cohort, told the Guardian.

"She could see a problem and cut through it at a young age."

- Future leader? -

Mahmood has often recounted how when she was growing up her parents kept a cricket bat behind the counter of their family shop to fend off any would-be shoplifters.

"It gave her a recognition of the kind of insecurity that people up and down the country feel on a daily basis, and a desire to heal those divisions," a person close to Mahmood told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Mahmood studied law at Oxford and became one of Britain's first female Muslim MPs in 2010, elected to represent the Birmingham Ladywood constituency.

In an interview earlier this year, she described Islam as the "absolute core of my life".

"It's where I draw my sense of duty and public service from," she told The Spectator.

Mahmood held multiple shadow minister positions while Labour was in opposition between 2010 and 2024, but declined to serve in left-wing former leader Jeremy Corbyn's top team.

She is considered on the right of the centre-left Labour party and is often tipped as a potential leader, should Prime Minister Keir Starmer step down.

Labour MP Jonathan Hinder told AFP he believes Mahmood's "bold and radical" asylum reforms can help "neutralise" rising support for Nigel Farage's anti-immigrant Reform UK party.

But Clive Lewis, a left-wing Labour MP, told AFP she was guilty of "desperate political posturing" and "performative cruelty".

Mahmood, for her part, is clear-eyed.

"Dark forces are stirring up anger in this country, and seeking to turn that anger into hate," she wrote in the Guardian this week.

"We must take the opportunity we have to stop that from happening."