A renewed push for legislation banning first-cousin marriage by a former Conservative minister and current MP has met with opposition from the ruling Labour party and a British-Muslim MP.
Conservative MP Richard Holden argued in Parliament that first-cousin marriages carry significant, often unknown, health risks that are amplified across generations.
Medical research has confirmed adverse health outcomes for children of such unions. Holden also emphasized the impact on societal openness and women’s rights, citing the close familial ties involved.
Holden urged Prime Minister Starmer to reconsider blocking the bill, but Starmer simply stated, “We’ve taken our position on that Bill, thank you.”
A 2024 study indicated that nearly 46% of women from the Pakistani community in Bradford, England, shared a “common ancestor,” a figure that was 62% a decade prior, according to a government study.
While the Prime Minister’s office has not explained their opposition to the bill, a Starmer spokesman told Digital that “Expert advice risks on first-cousin marriages are clear. In terms of legislation and what the government set up in the after the election, so of course we do not want people to enter in cousin marriages.”
He added, “We are focused on making sure every part of the government is focused on delivering on issues that matter to the British public. We set out our legislative priorities.”
The BBC reports that Norway has banned cousin marriage, and Sweden is expected to follow suit next year, amid a large influx of migrants from the Middle East and North Africa into Scandinavian countries.
The failure to outlaw marriage between first cousins has sparked outrage among prominent conservatives in the UK.
Ben Habib, chairman of the Great British Political Action Committee, told Digital that liberalism in the U.K. is out of control. “In the pursuit of allowing people to do whatever they like, sanity is being set aside. It matters not whether that which you wish to do is deeply damaging. If you’re a minority, you have a protective blanket put around you and encouraged to continue.”
Habib stated that the practice of marrying cousins “exited Western culture over a hundred years ago” but has returned due to “mass immigration from cultures which haven’t kept pace with ours.” He criticized the British government for allowing this “debilitating practice” to continue, arguing that “Liberalism is reversing cultural advancement. And our government is in on the act. This insanity must stop.”
Independent MP Iqbal Mohamed, while rejecting a legislative ban, acknowledged during parliamentary debates that “there are documented health risks with first-cousin marriage” and called for “greater awareness.” However, he believes that “empowering the state to ban adults from marrying each other” is not the solution and that a ban would be neither “effective or enforceable.”
Medical experts say that children of first-cousin marriages face a heightened risk of autosomal recessive genetic disorders.
Mohamed believes “The matter needs to be approached as a health awareness issue and a cultural issue where women are being forced against their will to undergo marriage.”
Mohamed noted that first-cousin marriage is preferred or accepted by an estimated 35% to 50% of sub-Saharan populations and is common in the Middle East and South Asia. In July 2024, British on the Conservative Party’s 14-year reign and voted in Starmer’s leftist Labour Party.