What was claimed
Naz Shah MP said: “Those abused girls in Rotherham and elsewhere just need to shut their mouths. For the good of diversity.”
Our verdict
Ms Shah didn’t say this. She retweeted then deleted this quote from a parody account on Twitter (now X) in 2017, which she has said was a “genuine accident”.
A quote wrongly attributed to Labour MP Naz Shah continues to circulate on Facebook.
The posts feature a picture of Ms Shah alongside the text: “Muslim Labour MP Naz Shah - ‘Those abused girls in Rotherham and elsewhere just need to shut their mouths. For the good of diversity.’”
But this is not a direct quote from Ms Shah—there is no record that she has ever said this. Instead it appears to have been taken from a post she retweeted and liked in 2017, which came from an account on Twitter (now X) reportedly parodying the political commentator Owen Jones.
Ms Shah later unshared and unliked the post, and at the time her spokesperson told The Sun she had shared it by accident.
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Earlier this year Ms Shah told Full Fact: “I accidentally shared a post for a few minutes—it was a genuine accident. But for the last eight years, tens of thousands of social media posts containing the most vociferous, vile, and Islamophobic content have been deliberately shared online to spread disinformation.
“This disinformation is dangerous because ordinary people, who don’t know the context or are not prepared to read the background, not only believe the tweet but also the vile views shared with it.”
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as missing context because Naz Shah didn’t say this.
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Subscribe to weekly email newsletters from Full Fact for updates on politics, immigration, health and more. Our fact checks are free to read but not to produce, so you will also get occasional emails about fundraising and other ways you can help. You can unsubscribe at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy.