THE SPECTATOR | Published January 7, 2025
Keir Starmer is facing growing pressure to a launch a national review into grooming gangs, but so far the Prime Minister is holding firm. ‘This doesn’t need more consultation, it doesn’t need more research, it just needs action. There have been many, many reviews…frankly, it’s time for action,’ he said yesterday. Starmer’s comments reinforce the position of Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister, who last week refused Oldham Council’s request for a government-led public inquiry into grooming gangs in the town. But what’s the real reason Labour is so reluctant to probe these appalling crimes?
Is Phillips reluctant to give the go ahead to an inquiry that might ask difficult and sensitive questions about the identity of the perpetrators?
It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that Phillips’ wafer-thin majority might play a part in her thinking. The Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley won at the last election by just 693 votes. When she made her acceptance speech, she was heckled. Phillips responded by saying: ‘I understand a strong woman standing up to you is met with such reticence’. Her constituency, like others in Birmingham, has a significant Muslim population. Is Phillips reluctant to give the go ahead to an inquiry that might ask difficult and sensitive questions about the identity of the perpetrators in Oldham, and indeed in other towns affected by Pakistani grooming gangs who exploited children for their own sexual gratification?
Phillips’ letter to Oldham Council, seen by GB News, claims that it is for the local authority ‘alone to decide to commission an inquiry into child sexual exploitation locally, rather than for the government to intervene.’ Whether or not this increasingly untenable position can hold isn’t clear. But what is plain to see is that Labour appears petrified of having an open discussion on the ethnicity of perpetrators, in places like Rochdale, Rotherham and Telford. Is this because vote bloc politics risks swinging elections in marginal constituencies?
Whatever the reason, this issue isn’t going away. Elon Musk at least appears determined that it won’t. The X owner has said: ‘So many people at all levels of power in the UK need to be in prison for this’. He even suggested Phillips herself should be jailed. Whatever you think of Musk’s intervention, the choice here must surely be to prioritise justice for victims of child sexual exploitation. But is Labour’s fear of losing seats influencing their apparent reluctance to give the green light to a broader inquiry?
Comments by ex-Labour MP for Rochdale, Simon Danczuk who responded to Musk’s ‘prison’ post on X, makes it clear that Labour at least has questions to answer on this subject. Danczuk, a Reform candidate at the last election, made a bombshell accusation that ‘senior Labour politicians warned me not to mention the ethnicity of the perpetrators, for fear of losing votes, when I tried shining a light on the Rochdale grooming gangs’. His accusation, if true, pours further fuel on this increasingly explosive issue.
The role of the perpetrators’ religion in these crimes remains a sensitive issue in British politics, which many politicians are clearly wary of addressing. Yet it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that this was an important factor in at least some of the crimes. Notably, in 2012, Judge Gerald Clifton, who sentenced members of the Rochdale ‘grooming gang’ at Liverpool Crown Court, said: ‘All of you treated them [the victims] as though they were worthless and beyond respect. I believe that one of the factors that led to that was they were not of your community or religion’.
READ FULL ARTICLE
SOURCE: www.spectator.co.uk
RELATED: Sex abuse inquiry backed by Labour did not ‘properly investigate’ grooming gangs
Pressure grows for new public scrutiny of police failures, council cover-ups and CPS approach to prosecutions
Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, is the latest Labour figure to rule out a new inquiry Credit: Jeff Overs/BBC
THE TELEGRAPH | Published January 7, 2025
A child sex abuse inquiry backed by Labour did not properly investigate grooming gangs, critics have said.
The Government, under pressure to set up a statutory inquiry into the scandal, has pointed to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) over the past week to insist the topic had been covered at a national level.
On Sunday, Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, again dismissed demands for a new inquiry, claiming the problem had been covered by the IICSA, which reported in 2022.
He denied the Government’s reluctance to announce an inquiry was linked to the “dominant ethnicity” of the gangs involved, adding: “The reason we’re not doing another national inquiry is because there’s already been a national inquiry.”
But while a section of the £180 million report did look into child sexual exploitation by organised networks, the focus on grooming gangs was extremely limited and did not hear evidence about the scandals in towns such as Rotherham, Rochdale and Oxford.
Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said on Sunday that a national inquiry was vital to get to the truth, and suggested the Government was scared to sanction one because it was frightened of what it might unearth.
Mr Philp said: “The IICSA inquiry only covered six of the towns involved in the child rape gang scandal.
“Many of the worst affected towns were not even looked at by IICSA. We urgently need a full public inquiry to get to the truth – including the truth about the failure by the police to investigate, the truth about cover-ups by Labour local councils and the truth about the CPS approach to prosecutions, including during Keir Starmer’s time as DPP.
READ FULL ARTICLE
SOURCE: www.thetelegraph.co.uk
Be the first to comment