What was claimed
The mayor of New York Zohran Mamdani said the “UK has lost its moral compass” at an event attended by Keir Starmer, and in return the PM banned him from Britain.
Our verdict
There is no evidence Mr Mamdani said this and the audio in the video claiming this has almost definitely been made using artificial intelligence. Mr Mamdani has not been banned from Britain.
A series of videos shared on social media falsely claim that there has been a spat between the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and New York mayor Zohran Mamdani, in which Mr Mamdani supposedly said that “the UK has lost its moral compass” resulting in Mr Starmer banning him from the country.
But there’s absolutely no evidence Mr Mamdani said this and he’s not been banned from Britain.
The clips are styled like news reports, mimicking the voice of Sky News political editor, Beth Rigby, but the audio isn’t real. The unnatural pauses and uneven cadence mean it was almost certainly made using AI, although we can’t 100% rule out being made another way, such as using an impersonator. Full Fact has contacted Ms Rigby for comment.
The videos claim Mr Mamdani “tore into Prime Minister Keir Starmer live on international television”, accusing the UK Government of “hardening borders at the expense of vulnerable people, of breaking promises to working communities, and of dressing cruelty in the language of control when he said the UK has lost its moral compass”.
The clips go on to claim that “within hours” Mr Starmer had “signed an order declaring Mamdani persona non grata, banned from Britain”.
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The video claims the clip of the incident “raced across screens” and that “headlines screamed” about it. But there are no credible reports of any such disagreement between the two politicians, video of such a moment or any evidence Mr Mamdani has been banned from Britain.
We have previously seen and debunked similar fake stories about politicians shared online.
Before sharing content like this that you see on social media, it’s important to consider whether it comes from a verifiable and trustworthy source. Our Full Fact toolkit can do this.
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 false because Zohran Mamdani has not been banned from Britain and the events described in the video did not happen. The audio in the video clip has almost certainly been made using AI.
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