Who Is Yasmin Alibhai-Brown Husband? A Look Into Her Life, Love & Legacy

Introduction

When people search for Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, they often find themselves curious not just about her fearless journalism but also about the woman behind the byline — her personal life, her loves, and her choices. One of the most searched topics surrounding this celebrated British journalist and author is Yasmin Alibhai-Brown husband. Who is the man she has spent more than three decades with? How did they meet? And what does their relationship say about the woman who has spent a lifetime writing about identity, belonging, and the meaning of home?

This article takes a warm, honest look at Yasmin’s life — from her remarkable origins in Uganda to her long and loving marriage, her children, and the conversations she has sparked about possibly leaving the UK.

Quick Bio Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

Who Is Yasmin Alibhai-Brown?

Before diving into her personal life, it helps to understand just how significant a figure Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is in British public life. Born Yasmin Damji on 10 December 1949 in Kampala, Uganda, she grew up in a South Asian Muslim family rooted in the Nizari Ismaili branch of Shia Islam. Her upbringing in East Africa shaped her worldview in ways that would later fuel some of the most compelling journalism Britain has produced in recent decades.

After completing her undergraduate degree in English literature at Makerere University in 1972, Yasmin made the life-changing decision to move to the United Kingdom — and she did so just ahead of Idi Amin’s brutal expulsion of Ugandan Asians from the country. It was a narrow escape that stayed with her, one she has revisited many times in her writing.

She went on to complete a Master of Philosophy degree in literature at Linacre College, University of Oxford, in 1975. For several years after that, she worked as a teacher, particularly with immigrant and refugee communities — people who, like her, knew what it meant to rebuild a life in an unfamiliar land. It was not until her mid-thirties that she stepped into journalism, but when she did, she made an immediate and lasting impact.

Today, Yasmin is a columnist for The i Paper and the Evening Standard, and has written for The Guardian, The Observer, The New York Times, Time, Newsweek, and the Daily Mail. She is widely regarded as one of Britain’s most prominent voices on immigration, diversity, and multiculturalism. She is also the founder of British Muslims for Secular Democracy, a group that advocates for a separation of religion and government.

In 2001, she was awarded an MBE for services to journalism — an honour she famously returned in 2003 as a protest against the Iraq War and what she described as a growing British imperialism. In 2022, she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL), a recognition of the lasting value of her written work.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown Husband: Meet Colin Brown

So, who is Yasmin Alibhai-Brown husband? The man who has been by her side for over three decades is Colin Brown — a former chairman of the Consumer Services Panel of the Financial Services Authority. He is, by most accounts, a thoughtful, grounded, and quietly devoted partner to one of Britain’s most outspoken women.

Colin Brown’s professional background in financial services could not seem further removed from Yasmin’s world of columns, controversy, and cultural commentary — and perhaps that contrast is part of what makes their relationship work. Where Yasmin is publicly passionate and politically vocal, Colin is described in her own words as “a working-class practical Englishman not given to romantic rapture.” And yet, it is clear that beneath that understated exterior lies a deeply loving and supportive partner.

How Yasmin and Colin Met

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and her husband Colin Brown first met in 1988, and the connection between them clearly ran deep from the start. By 1990, they were married — a union that brought together two very different worlds: a Ugandan-born Asian Muslim journalist and a working-class English professional.

Their relationship, in many ways, is a real-life reflection of the very themes Yasmin has spent her career writing about — the beauty and complexity of multicultural Britain, the power of connection across cultural lines, and what it truly means to belong somewhere.

30+ Years of Marriage: A Love That Deepened Over Time

One of the most touching aspects of Yasmin Alibhai-Brown’s relationship with her husband is that it has not simply endured — it has grown. In a piece she wrote for the wellbeing platform NOON, Yasmin shared a deeply personal account of how she and Colin experienced a profound renewal during the Covid-19 pandemic.

She described one particular morning during the lockdown when Colin, not typically a man of romantic words, whispered to her: that without her, he could not get through it, and that he loved her more than he could bear. It was, she wrote, a moment of spontaneous tenderness that neither of them had a right to expect after 30 years together — and it moved her enormously.

That moment, and others like it during that difficult period, taught Yasmin important lessons about reconnecting with a long-term partner. She reflected that couples do not have to wait for extreme circumstances to rediscover what brought them together in the first place. It is a generous and humanising insight from a woman who could easily be reduced to her politics but who, in moments like these, reveals herself to be something far warmer.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown First Marriage

Before Colin, Yasmin had another significant chapter in her romantic life. Her first husband was Shiraz Alibhai — the man whose surname she kept and wove into her professional identity. She has spoken candidly about this earlier relationship, sharing that she had loved him since she was 18 years old. They had a son together, and the marriage lasted for a significant stretch of her adult life.

The marriage ultimately ended when her first husband left her for a younger woman — a painful experience she has not hidden from public discussion. Rather than letting that experience harden her, Yasmin found love again. Her resilience in the face of that heartbreak, and her openness in speaking about it, reflects the same honesty and courage that defines her journalism.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown Daughter and Family Life

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is a mother of two. Her son is from her first marriage to Shiraz Alibhai, while her daughter was born from her marriage to Colin Brown. Though she has kept her children largely out of the public spotlight — which is entirely understandable given the scrutiny that surrounds public figures — Yasmin Alibhai-Brown’s daughter and son are clearly central to her sense of home and belonging.

Her family life also appears in her work in meaningful ways. Her 2008 book, The Settler’s Cookbook: A Memoir of Love, Migration and Food, is a beautiful blend of personal and family stories woven together with recipes. The book explores the East African Asian diaspora experience through food — a subject that, for Yasmin, connects memory, migration, identity, and love. Interestingly, her husband Colin appears in connection with this very book, photographed alongside Yasmin’s mother Jena — a detail that speaks to how deeply he has become part of her family story.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown Leaving the UK: What Has She Said?

In recent years, conversations around Yasmin Alibhai-Brown leaving the UK have surfaced with some regularity. Yasmin has, at various points in her career, expressed deep disillusionment with the direction of British society — particularly around issues of racism, political rhetoric, and the treatment of minorities and immigrants. These are themes she has explored for decades, but they have taken on a sharper personal edge in more recent years.

While she has not made a definitive public announcement confirming a permanent departure, her comments on the subject have been taken seriously by those who follow her work. For a woman who left Uganda as a young person and rebuilt her entire life in Britain, the idea of leaving the UK carries enormous emotional weight. It is not a statement she would make lightly.

What her reflections on leaving reveal, more than anything, is the depth of her disenchantment — and the continued importance of her voice in holding Britain accountable to the ideals of the multicultural, inclusive society she has always championed.

Yasmin’s Books and Writing Legacy

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown’s contribution to British literature and journalism is substantial. Some of her most notable works include:

• No Place Like Home — exploring identity and belonging
• True Colours — on race and multiculturalism in Britain
• Some of My Best Friends Are… — a sharp examination of race relations
• In Defence of Political Correctness — challenging common misconceptions
• The Settler’s Cookbook: A Memoir of Love, Migration and Food (2008) — her most personal and celebrated book, blending memoir with recipes from the East African Asian diaspora

Her writing consistently sits at the intersection of the personal and the political, drawing on her own lived experience to illuminate broader social truths. It is this quality — the willingness to be both rigorous and vulnerable — that has earned her a readership across generations.

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Conclusion

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is far more than a journalist. She is a woman who has lived one of the most remarkable stories in modern British public life — escaping political upheaval in Uganda, rebuilding herself in Britain, surviving a painful first marriage, and finding lasting love with her husband Colin Brown. Her daughter and son, her books, her causes, and her columns all speak to a life lived with extraordinary purpose and passion.

The story of Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and her husband is ultimately a story about resilience — the resilience of a woman who has faced loss, displacement, and heartbreak, and kept writing, kept fighting, and kept loving anyway.

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