A Conservative member of Parliament has renewed a push to ban first-cousin marriage in the United Kingdom, setting up a fresh political fight over a practice that British authorities have simultaneously acknowledged carries serious genetic risks and defended as culturally and economically beneficial.
Dr. Luke Evans, the opposition Conservatives’ shadow health secretary, submitted a First Cousins (Prohibited Relationships) Bill to Parliament in June, according to reporting in The Daily Wire. The move follows an earlier attempt in January, when another MP proposed similar legislation — but then-Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer declined to bring it up for a vote.
A practice that persists despite the science
The debate sits at an uncomfortable intersection of genetics, public finance, and electoral politics. Children born to parents who are first cousins face more than twice the risk of a congenital abnormality compared with children of unrelated couples, a figure that researchers describe as well established.
The numbers are especially stark in Bradford, an English city with a large Pakistani-origin population. In one study cited in the reporting, more than 30% of birth defects among babies of Pakistani origin in the city occurred in children whose parents were cousins. Bradford also records more births with genetic conditions than anywhere else in the country.
Nationally, first-cousin marriage is legal and carries no prohibition. The practice was once common across Britain — as familiar to readers of Jane Austen as to the royal family. Queen Victoria married her cousin Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and Austen’s novels feature cousin marriages in both “Mansfield Park” and “Persuasion.”
Rates fell sharply as genetics research exposed the dangers of inbreeding. Charles Darwin, himself married to a cousin, observed defects in inbred plants; in 1902 Archibald Garrod publicized the link between inbreeding and recessive-gene disorders. By the 20th century, cousin marriages accounted for roughly 1% of British unions, according to a BBC report cited in the article.
In the United States, the picture is patchwork. Marrying a first cousin remains legal in 16 states and Washington, D.C., though the practice is rare — around 0.1% of marriages.
Immigration reshapes the map
The British low national rate has reportedly risen alongside mass immigration from countries where cousin marriage is customary. In 2025, more than half — 55% — of Pakistanis in Britain were reportedly married to first cousins, a higher share than within Pakistan itself. The article frames the trend as one that carries a direct cost to the public purse: more than 70% of ethnic Pakistani households in Britain fall into the bottom 40% of the income distribution, according to government data, meaning the National Health Service and welfare programs absorb much of the expense of treating genetic conditions that could have been avoided.
Into that gap has stepped official guidance that critics call dangerously permissive. NHS material has suggested that first-cousin marriage can provide “stronger extended family support systems and economic advantages,” while a guide for midwives described concerns about inbreeding as “exaggerated,” noting that 85% to 90% of cousin couples “do not have affected children.” That guidance urged that the risks be weighed against potential economic benefits and social connections.
The framing draws a sharp objection from critics: any advantages of cousin marriage accrue to the families involved, while the costs are spread across all taxpayers.
Labour’s calculation
The politics are thorny for the governing Labour Party. According to the reporting, Labour is increasingly reliant on low-income immigrant voters as its traditional working-class base shifts toward the Conservatives and the migration-skeptic Reform and Restore parties. One recent survey found that among voters of Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Caribbean, and African descent earning under £25,000 ($34,000), there is a 93% likelihood of Labour support.
That dynamic, the article argues, explains why Labour has been reluctant to touch the issue: it has chosen to protect its ethnic vote bank, in the article’s characterization, at the expense of children at elevated risk of preventable disease.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham — who took office after Starmer — now faces one of his first tests, according to the piece. The question posed is whether he will back the science and potentially save thousands of children from a future of serious illness, or whether he will avoid alienating a voting bloc that might otherwise drift further left, including toward movements organizing around the “Gaza independent” banner.
Evans’s bill represents the most concrete parliamentary challenge yet to the status quo. Whether it reaches a vote — and how the government responds — will signal how far the political class is willing to go in confronting a cultural practice that the article describes as one the West abandoned long ago for good reason, alongside child marriage, so-called “honor” killings, and domestic violence.
The underlying argument advanced by the piece is that immigrants who move to developed countries should leave such practices behind if they hope to assimilate and share in the prosperity and freedoms that drew them there. The Daily Wire published the article as an opinion essay by Simon Hankinson, a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center and author of “The Ten Woke Commandments (You Must Not Obey).”
What happens next rests with Parliament and with Burnham’s government. The First Cousins (Prohibited Relationships) Bill awaits its fate, and the debate over how Britain balances genetic risk, cultural accommodation, and electoral arithmetic is far from settled.
Source: www.dailywire.com — https://www.dailywire.com/news/cousin-marriage-the-strange-politics-of-inward-branching-family-trees