Independent MP Rupert Lowe has called for an American judge to oversee the national inquiry into grooming gangs, questioning whether the British system can be trusted to investigate itself.

He argued that British authorities "ultimately end up marking their own homework" and noted how "rarely they actually find any blame as a portion to anybody within the British establishment."

The comments come after the Government has announced a U-turn on its position regarding a national inquiry into grooming gangs, with Home Secretary Yvette Cooper accepting all recommendations from Baroness Casey's report.

Sir Keir Starmer revealed at the weekend that he would accept the recommendations of Casey's 200-page report after previously resisting calls for a national inquiry and accusing proponents of "jumping on the bandwagon of the far-right".

Rupert Lowe asked whether we 'trust the British state'

Speaking to GB News, Rupert Lowe said: "The question we should all ask ourselves is do we trust the British state now? Do we trust the judiciary? Do we trust the judges?

"They ultimately end up marking their own homework. And it's amazing how rarely they actually find any blame as a portion to anybody within the British establishment.

"So we question whether we should have an American judge or some other person from outside our political establishment who's actually going to carry out this inquiry, I think probably we should.

"If you look at the post office inquiry, I lost a lot of faith in the Government and the state. They were basically hiding the truth.

"One thing I do think is absolutely essential is that that every piece of evidence that this inquiry hears must be posted on X and all the public platforms so that the British people can scrutinise it in full, which is absolutely essential.

"Otherwise it will be a case of ball long grass kick. And that's what we can't allow to happen.

Rupert Lowe spoke to Martin Daubney after Yvette Cooper's announcements

"This is a blot, a stain on our National History and none of us can move forward until we've actually exorcized it from our society and we get at the truth.

"It's not about racism, it's about right and wrong, black and white, good or evil. It's as simple as that, really."

Cooper told MPs that more than 800 cases have been identified for review, expecting "that figure to rise above a thousand."

She revealed that victims included children as young as 10, often those in care or with learning or physical disabilities.

The Home Secretary described how "children as young as 10 plied with drugs and alcohol, brutally raped by gangs of men" had been "disgracefully let down again and again by the authorities who were meant to protect them."

Casey's report found evidence that authorities refused to examine the ethnicity of offenders for "fear of appearing racist" and identified a "continued failure to gather robust national data about the ethnicity of offenders".

The government will implement all 12 recommendations from Casey's report, with the full national inquiry expected to take "around three years", according to Cooper.