Over three-quarters of Britons support a fresh investigation into child sex abuse by what are called predominantly Pakistani grooming gangs, something the labour government of Sir Keir Starmer has set itself hard against.
An overwhelming majority of Britons may be guilty of jumping on the “bandwagon of the far-right” — by the standards expressed by the Prime Minister this week as he moved to shut down discussion of migrant heritage rape gangs — by saying they want a deeper investigation into the grooming gang scandal. Some 76 per cent say a fresh report is needed, including a majority from every mainstream political party including even Starmer’s Labour.
Two-thirds of Labour voters disagree with the Prime Minister on the issue. 84 per cent of Conservatives want a fresh inquiry, and 91 per cent of supporters of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK do too.
There have already been several smaller inquiries into child rape gangs, or wider national reviews which touched on the matter peripherally. But critics say the scandal appears to run so deep, and so comparatively little can be said to be really known — there aren’t even good estimates on how many victims there have been nationwide, nor agreement on how many grooming gangs there are — that a fresh investigation is needed to “connect the dots”.
One remarkable black hole in what previous inquiries have investigated is just how little effort has been put into how so many child sex gangs with similar operating structures emerged at the same time, and how it is so many arms of government from local authorities, child services, and police were persuaded to look the other way so consistently. While actual abusers have been put in prison, no government employees who enabled or ignored abuse has been jailed to date.
Reform UK Member of Parliament Rupert Lowe presented a laundry list of data needed on what are called predominantly Pakistani child rape grooming gangs, thought to have plagued British towns and cities for decades. He said in Parliament:
Will the Government undertake a full investigation into officials who had knowledge of these crimes yet failed to act?… How many girls are estimated to have been raped… How many vulnerable young girls are estimated to still be involved in these gangs… Will the Government publish a full nationality breakdown of those convicted for such offences, along with the location of their crimes? How many known foreign rapists are there per town, per region? Will the Government publish a breakdown of the immigration status of those involved? On what grounds were they in the UK? Do they have previous convictions? How many foreign nationals found guilty have been released but not deported?
How many who were released receive any state benefits? How many children have been born following a rape by those men?… How many deportations have been blocked due to the rapist’s right to a family life or due to other European Court of Human Rights influences?… Will the Government release all court transcripts relating to those cases so that the British people can understand just part of the horror for themselves?… Which politicians, local and national, had knowledge of the events but failed to act—again, going as far as actively concealing what was truly happening?
The Prime Minister, on the other hand, has insisted new investigations are a waste of time, even if it seems this puts him at odds with a clear majority of his own voters. On Monday, Starmer has criticised people “calling for inquiries because they want to jump on a bandwagon of the far-right”, a remarkable attack and one he clumsily tried to later walk back, the damage having already been done. He is still blocking an inquiry but has attempted to ameliorate by claiming he is open-minded on the matter.
And while his Parliamentary colleagues were whipped into blocking the inquiry amendment on Wednesday night, other senior Labour figures away from Parliament are not so hidebound by the party line, and may yet rebel.
The first top Labour man to speak out is Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, ambitious and proving capable in the role, who has said he supports, at least, a “limited” national inquiry. Per The Guardian, Burnham pointed out a full national inquiry would have legal powers to investigate unlike the smaller local investigations. He said it could: “draw out some of these national issues and compel people to give evidence who then may have charges to answer and be held to account.”
Nevertheless, he said a bid by The Conservatives — freshly in opposition after 14 years in power — to actually force an inquiry was simply opportunistic, which many may judge as a reasonable line of attack given how little they did to deal with these issues while in power.
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