Conservative MP David Reed appeared on Newsnight to discuss the Belfast knife attack and introduced the topic of illegal immigration. Victoria Derbyshire interrupted to point out that Hadi Alodid – the 30-year-old Sudanese man charged with the attempted murder of Stephen Ogilvie – had been granted legal permission to remain in the United Kingdom by the Conservative government. Reed said he would not comment on the case. He then said illegal migration and migration were “massive issues” and that “the things are linked.” Derbyshire pointed out again that the suspect was here legally. The exchange was brief.
Reed: “Illegal migration is reaching—”
Derbyshire: “Sorry, are you saying the suspect was an illegal migrant? He was given permission to stay in the country by your then government.”
Reed: waffles. “I won’t comment on the case.”
Derbyshire: “Ok.”
Reed: “But the things are linked. Illegal migration and migration are massive issues.”
Derbyshire: “The suspect was here legally.”
What the facts are
Hadi Alodid appeared at Belfast Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday morning charged with the attempted murder of Stephen Ogilvie, who lost his left eye and sustained deep cuts to his head, face and back during the alleged attack on Monday night. Alodid arrived in the UK in 2023 and was granted refugee status later that year. He had legal leave to remain in the United Kingdom until 2028.
As we reported in our fast-track asylum scheme piece, Alodid was granted that status through the Streamlined Asylum Process introduced by Rishi Sunak to clear a backlog of more than 92,000 cases – a scheme Home Office staff privately described as a “grant factory.” The Immigration Minister overseeing that scheme was Robert Jenrick. The Home Secretary was Suella Braverman. Both are now Reform MPs.
The specific claim – that this was a case of illegal immigration – is not supported by the facts. Alodid was not an illegal migrant. He was a legal refugee who had been through a government process and been granted status under Conservative-era policy. Whether that policy was the right one is a legitimate debate. Whether it was illegal immigration is not a matter of opinion.
The pattern across the week
Reed is not the first person to make this conflation. As we reported in our Polanski Yusuf piece, Reform’s Zia Yusuf described the attack as “a direct result of treacherous Tory and Labour immigration policy” – a framing that is at least honest about it being legal policy rather than illegal migration. As we reported in our Starmer Tice PMQs piece, Richard Tice asked Starmer to resign over “failure to stop the boats” in the context of Belfast – a different conflation, given that Alodid arrived through Dublin and the Common Travel Area rather than a small boat.
The word “illegal” is doing specific political work in these exchanges. It frames the Belfast attack as a consequence of border failure rather than a consequence of a specific asylum policy decision – a distinction that matters because the former implicates the current Labour government and the latter implicates the previous Conservative one.
Derbyshire’s correction was straightforward. It did not require complex analysis. The suspect had legal leave to remain in the United Kingdom until 2028. This is a fact. Reed introduced the subject of illegal immigration. This was inaccurate. She corrected him once. He continued. She corrected him again.
The week in context
Victoria Derbyshire has had a productive week of this. As we reported in our Cunningham JFK piece, she also pressed Reform’s Laila Cunningham about Farage’s 40-day press conference absence, was offered a JFK comparison in response, and pressed on it without the interview collapsing. The ability to say “the suspect was here legally” calmly and twice, in the face of a politician who then says “but the things are linked,” is a specific and underrated journalistic skill.
Reed’s “the things are linked” is worth examining on its own terms. The claim is that illegal immigration and legal asylum policy are connected – that discussing one necessarily involves discussing the other. There is a version of that argument that is coherent: a permissive legal asylum process may create incentives for illegal entry, and the politics of one affects the politics of the other. But that is not what Reed was saying. He was saying “the things are linked” as a way to continue talking about illegal immigration in a conversation about a man who was here legally.
Derbyshire said: “The suspect was here legally.”
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