‘Temper justice with mercy’

Jacob Rees-mogg has likened the government’s stripping of Shamima Begum’s citizenship to dumping rubbish in a neighbour’s garden.

The Conservative MP told students at the University of Kent that Britain should take responsibility for the London schoolgirl (pictured), who left the country to join Isis at the age of 15.

The Home Secretary took the controversial decision to revoke Miss Begum’s citizenship, citing her Bangladeshi heritage, after she was found in a refugee camp in northern Syria earlier this month.

Now 19, she has just given birth to her third child and says she wants to return home.

“You wouldn’t tip rubbish into your neighbour’s garden,” Mr Rees-mogg said.

“If British citizens have gone around the world and committed crimes, pretty serious crimes, allegedly, whose responsibility is that?

“Is it ours, or is it Bangladesh’s? We’re the fifth biggest economy in the world, and we are expecting the 100th or 120th economy in the world to take charge of a really difficult, potential terrorist problem.

“I think that a girl of 15 who was married while she was still 15, is at least to some extent a victim of abuse. Therefore we must temper justice with mercy.”

His views are backed by another Conservative, Herne Bay MP Sir Roger Gale, who says the UK should not shirk its legal duties to British citizens.

“It comes down to a question of law as much as anything else,” he said. She should come back - as should anybody else who’s a British subject - and be tried and sentenced if they’ve committed crimes or been accessories to crimes. That I know is not a popular view and I understand people are saying she should stay where she is, but we have legal obligations.”

Meanwhile, Canterbury MP Rosie Duffield claims Miss Begum is being used as a “political pawn”.

“Revoking this young woman’s British Citizenship sets a very dangerous precedent and leaves her and her baby effectively stateless in Syria,” she said.

“She must absolutely face the consequences of fleeing Britain to join IS but we also need to remember that she made this decision as a 15-year-old child who was likely to have been unduly influenced or ‘groomed’ by adults, effectively trafficked for sex and marriage to a much older man and has seen two of her own children die.”