Senior Labour lawmaker attempted to put to bed days of controversy over her having dismissed child rape gang concerns as “dog whistle” politics, but made clear the government’s course on no national inquiry into the gangs was not to change.
Leader of the House of Commons Lucy Powell MP apologised at the dispatch box on Thursday, her second attempt to rectify an attempt to shut down discussion of the UK grooming gang rape scandal made last week.
Powell had responded to a remark on BBC radio on May 2nd about the grooming gangs who have for decades raped, prostituted, and tortured predominantly white children in English multicultural towns on a radio talk show by stating, caustically: “Oh, we want to blow that little trumpet now, do we? Yeah, let’s get that dog whistle out… oh dear”.
Thursday’s apology was prompted by a question from Conservative politician Jesse Norman in a parliamentary debate, who noted Powell had “received universal condemnation for dismissing concerns about grooming gangs as dog whistle politics”. Stating her previous attempt to step away from her initial comments with a statement “conspicuously did not contain an apology for what she said”, Norman asked: “Does she agree the dismissal of these entirely valid concerns has been one of the factors behind what even today remains a huge, continuing, national scandal? Will she now back the call of many victims for a comprehensive national enquiry into grooming gangs?”.
Powell said: I am very sorry for those remarks, as I made clear over the weekend. I, and every member of this government want your truth to be heard, wherever that truth leads. Your truly appalling experiences need to be acted on, for those responsive to be accountable and face the full force of the law, and for justice to be served.”
In her apology, Powell — who has faced repeated calls to be sacked over her apparently callous disregard for grooming gang victims — stated that the government was working to get justice for victims and to take action. Yet she made clear that the present controversial position of the Labour government that no further inquiries into what happened and how it was able to happen would be needed.
Campaigners and critics say while many perpetrators have now been jailed, the fundamental causes and particularly how the organs of the state including the police, social services, and local government were able to look the other way for so long has never really been addressed. No police officer or social worker has ever been jailed over the scandal.
Powell’s original outburst came just days before it was revealed a compensation scheme to give payments to the many victims of child rape by grooming gangs has been cancelled by the Labour government, saying “In the current fiscal environment, this recommendation is very difficult to take forward”.
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