REFORM WROTE BRITISH-BORN INTO ITS HOUSING POLICY. IN TOWNS LIKE OLDHAM, THAT PUTS THE BIRADERI FIRST.

Richard Tice’s rule puts the British-born sons of Mirpur ahead of British White Workers.

On 24 August 2026 Richard Tice announced how a Reform government would allocate social housing. British-born workers under 35 go to the front of the queue, with priority for married couples with children and priority also for veterans. Social housing goes to British nationals in work. He said 1.3 million households were waiting and it was time to put young British workers first.

Nine days later Zia Yusuf, Reform's Home Affairs spokesman, told people that Labour's likely candidate in Holborn was born in Somalia and would not say why it mattered, and nobody in Reform would say it for him.

Put to one side for now that Reform will put the term British born on a housing list but not put it on a ballot paper. Clearly Reform is not frightened of the term. So why am I writing this.

The rule Reform was brave enough to announce does something its voters never realised. In towns like Oldham it puts the biraderi first. In Bradford, Birmingham, Blackburn, Rochdale, Rotherham, Luton, Kirklees and Tower Hamlets it does the same, because young, born here, married with children is a household you find in the Pakistani and Bangladeshi wards of every one of those towns more than the working class White communities that live there.

FIRST. THE LOOPHOLE. WHO THE BRITISH-BORN MAN MARRIED

A man born in the Royal Oldham, or Bradford Royal Infirmary, or the Royal Blackburn, is under 35 and in work. He marries a woman from Mirpur or Sylhet. She comes in on a spouse visa with no recourse to public funds. Ordinarily she cannot be allocated social housing in her own right or be made a joint tenant. He can be the sole tenant. The application goes in his name.

The council knows exactly who she is. But when that letting goes into the national figures the government records one nationality, the lead tenant's, and the lead tenant is him. She vanishes from the published data.

So he passes Reform's test on his own. Born here, under 35, in work. Together they are the married couple Reform has decided to reward.

Reform's announcement never says whether her birthplace disqualifies the couple from that reward. The law as it stands decides who can hold the tenancy by testing the applicant. The council records everyone else in the household, but they do not have to be eligible tenants, and Reform has said nothing about changing that.

The immigration figures may show a spouse visa. The housing figures show a British household.

Run Reform's newly announced policy through the law as it is and its highest preference lands on exactly the British-led household formed through transnational marriage.

I have watched that household form for over 50 years. The people in Oldham, Bradford and Birmingham who know how it forms and have read Tice's announcement are not complaining. They're laughing. They've just been fast tracked.

SECOND. THE DATA. WHO MARRIES

Pakistani and Bangladeshi adults marry. The 2021 Census has over 60 per cent of them married against 43.5 per cent of White British adults. That is the whole adult population and not the under-35s. Go older and the numbers increase.

How many Pakistani or Bangladeshi adults with children do you know that are not married?

Reform chose marriage as the thing that moves you up the queue, and in the towns where Pakistani and Bangladeshi families live, unlike their White counterparts, the majority of them are married and also married before having children. Thank you Richard.

Take two households. A 28-year-old from the Pakistani ward of Werneth, married with two children. A 28-year-old from the White ward of Royton, living with his girlfriend and their baby. Tice's rule puts the first ahead of the second. Reform made that choice for the whole country without once stopping to understand the consequences.

THIRD. THE TEST.WHO IS BRITISH-BORN

Second generation onwards in towns like mine were born in the local hospital. We are now at fourth and fifth generation immigrants. They are British-born under the test Reform announced, and the word that Reform's supporters heard as a rule against immigrants never touches them.

British Born is a test the children of the biraderi, the extended family and kinship network that runs so much of life in these towns, pass by definition. And because of the make up of White families in these working class towns. Reform's policy actually further disadvantages them.

THIS IS WHAT A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE DOES

Reform wrote a housing policy its voters read as putting White working-class families first. In Oldham and hundreds of towns and cities like mine, it puts the biraderi first.

It rewards being born here, being married and having children before 35, and in every town Reform is fighting for that profile is common in the Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities more than the working class White.

Reform did not know this because Reform does not know these communities. It knows a headline and a photograph. That is enough to point at a Somali woman and ask a crowd what they understand. It is not enough to write a policy without understanding the impact it will actually have on the people you intend to help.

AND ALWAYS. THE FEAR OF BEING BRANDED A RACIST

Reform is dancing around one word. It writes British-born where it can point to a housing list and say the rule is about fairness. It writes citizenship where it can point to Kruger's amendments and say the rule is about the vote. Every one of those choices is made to avoid being called racist, and every one of them has failed on its own terms.

The housing rule puts the biraderi first. The electoral rule does not exist.

A party that chooses its words to dodge a label ends up with policies written by the label rather than by the country, and the people who understand these towns can see it from a mile off.

The only question left is where Reform fails next, because a party that will not say what it means about a house or a seat is not going to say what it means about a school, a mosque, a grooming gang or a police force either, and those are the places it is asking to be trusted with.

And no, I am not anti Reform. I genuinely believe that they are our last chance. Which is why by sharing what I do, I hope that they see the error of their ways will become better and braver. And yes, for those that have asked me, I have offered to help them navigate these issues on numerous occasions. Unfortunately, no one senior in Reform has ever taken me up on the offer. I leave it to you to decide why.

For eight years I have exposed how politicians, police and public bodies failed working class White girls who were systematically raped by Pakistani grooming gangs. Together, with the support of the people of Oldham, we forced the Government to concede a National Statutory Inquiry after years of resistance.

Now the harder fight begins.

Andy Burnham is no longer the Mayor of Greater Manchester. He is the Prime Minister. That does not place him beyond scrutiny. If anything, it makes scrutiny more important than ever.

As Mayor, Burnham commissioned a series of Assurance Reviews across Greater Manchester, including one in my hometown of Oldham. They were presented as a search for the truth. They were nothing of the sort. They were cover ups of cover ups that allowed those responsible to escape proper accountability.

Don't take my word for it. Even former Greater Manchester Police detective Maggie Oliver has described what happened in Oldham as 'nothing short of a cover up'.

Despite every effort to stop us, we forced a National Inquiry. Now Burnham and others are attempting to rewrite the history of what happened under their watch.

At present, the inquiry has made no commitment to examine Burnham's own role or the decisions taken during his time as Mayor. That must change before the Oldham investigations begin.

The pressure to protect a serving Prime Minister will be immense. The institutions that failed these girls will have every incentive to avoid putting the country's most powerful politician under oath. Much of the media will once again find reasons to look the other way.

That is why this campaign cannot slow down now.

For too long this has been a one man operation. It needs to become something much bigger. We need the resources to build a genuinely independent investigative organisation with:

A professional website capable of reaching far larger audiences.
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The resources to investigate, travel and expose institutional failure wherever it is found.

Over the last six weeks we have secured over 800 paid supporters towards our target of 2,000. That is an incredible achievement. Every new supporter strengthens this campaign, increases our voice and makes it harder for those in power to ignore the evidence.

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Should we succeed, politicians will go to prison. Even if there is only the smallest chance of this happening, isn't it worth your support?

Raja Miah MBE