Mick Hartley

I posted about this a few weeks back, with Matthew Syed's analysis of the role of cousin marriages and the important part this close-kin clannishness played – and still plays – in the Muslim communities in the northern towns where the rape gangs flourished. It also, of course, significantly increases the chance of genetic problems with offspring. 

At UnHerd today – NHS trust spends £3.6 million treating cousin marriage birth defects:

Over the last five years, a single NHS trust has spent £3.6 million treating the genetic defects of children born from related parents. Responding to FOI requests from journalist Lewis Brackpool, Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust said it treated 1,559 patients between 1 January 2020 and 1 June 2025 who were diagnosed with a “family history of consanguinity”.

Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said it was unable to provide figures, claiming its data could not distinguish between genetic conditions caused by consanguinity and those that were not. In contrast to Birmingham, which relied on a single diagnostic code, Bradford said its coding system lacked the specificity to attribute cases to parental relatedness.

It went on: “Identifying relevant cases would require a manual review of individual patient records, which would exceed the appropriate cost and time limits under the Freedom of Information Act.”

Data from Born in Bradford (BiB) from 2023 showed that in three inner-city wards, 46% of mothers from the Pakistani community were married to a first or second cousin. Cousin marriage has been cited as the cause of 53% of all South Asian infant deaths from genetic disorders in the city. There is not yet data for how many cousin marriages there are in Birmingham but studies suggest that 20% of infant deaths in the city are the result of genetic complications from birth, the risk of which is doubled by having parents who are related.

These new figures come as the Marriage (Prohibited Degrees of Relationship) Bill works its way through Parliament, with its second reading due this week. Conservative MP Richard Holden introduced the bill in December, arguing that cousin marriage poses “risks to health, freedom [and] the cohesion of our society”. In February this year, the BBC reported on new data from Born in Bradford showing that children of first cousins were more likely to have speech and language difficulties, more likely to need more hospital appointments, and less likely to “reach a good stage of development”. A 2011 study showed that the likelihood of infant mortality increases substantially if the parents are first or second cousins.

Back to Matthew Syed:

The good news is that Kemi Badenoch has adopted this as Tory policy after campaigning by her colleague Richard Holden, and a poll for YouGov last month showed that 77 per cent of the British people are in favour of a ban (only 9 per cent oppose it). But here’s what astounds me: Labour remains against prohibition, despite (I am told) having read the evidence. Why? How? Permit me to suggest that I glimpse through the façade of prevarication a party still terrified of criticising any cultural practice out of fear of appearing racist. Isn’t that why it was mute for so long on female genital mutilation and honour beatings and still can’t bring itself to describe the burqa as a pernicious symbol of institutional misogyny?

And is busy preparing for a new definition of "Islamophobia" to be introduced.