Prime Minister Keir Starmer has finally done what he should have done months ago, and announced a national inquiry into the issue of grooming gangs. It comes off the back of a months-long audit by Baroness Casey, who also conducted an inquiry into Rotherham Council’s failings over the gangs a decade ago. Her audit is said to conclude that there is a need for a national inquiry.
It is easy to see why Keir Starmer wanted to avoid one. The racially-driven rape of thousands of mainly white girls is the worst race-hate crime in modern Britain. In inquiry after inquiry, it was revealed that the authorities had failed to prevent the crimes, often over fears of racism, and in some cases were actively complicit in the cover up. This is especially true for the Labour Party, which often relied on the votes of Pakistani-heritage people, the community which was most linked to the abuse. Kings College London academic David Betz has described this as “rapes for votes”. In the Rochdale grooming case, the police said that the grooming was not racially motivated.
Previously the argument was that there had been national level inquiries. In 2020 the Home Office published a report looking at the controversial element of ethnicity, but it was a whitewash. It failed to use the Home Office’s resources to look into this question in detail, relying on a summary of existing studies. But even those showed an over-representation of Pakistani-heritage abusers.
There was also the recent Independent Inquiry Into Child Sex Abuse but that, despite taking years to complete, only looked briefly at the issue of rape gangs. So far its recommendations have not been acted on and it failed to get to the root of the issue. Clearly there is a need for a proper inquiry.
That has been shown by groups like Open Justice, who used court sentencing remarks to track examples of girls being trafficked for abuse. Many of those data points showed girls being taken to Bradford for abuse, for example. But there have been few local prosecutions and the Council there has refused to hold a local inquiry. A national inquiry will be the only way for the victims there to get justice.
It will therefore be extremely important to see the terms of reference for the inquiry, as it will only be as good as the mandate it has. For the national inquiry to succeed, it should aim to send complicit officials to jail. To date, despite abject failings, no council worker or police officer has been. It needs to look at the role of anti-white racism among some ethnic minority groups, and the role played by anti-racist ideology in the failings of the authorities.
It should look, not just at the role of illegal immigration in these crimes, as suggested by Baroness Casey, but also that of legal immigration: in many cases these crimes were driven by foreign cultural attitudes to women and girls, especially white ones. That should include the subject of abuse within ethnic minority communities. It should also expose the scale and geographic spread of these crimes, sending task forces into places like Bradford. Finally, it should commit the National Crime Agency into following up every lead, so that victims denied justice, sometimes for decades, finally get it.
All this will be controversial. It will also be costly. It will cause the Prime Minister to have to look into some very dark places. But the full horror must be exposed and those responsible must be brought to justice.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer has finally done what he should have done months ago, and announced a national inquiry into the issue of grooming gangs. It comes off the back of a months-long audit by Baroness Casey, who also conducted an inquiry into Rotherham Council’s failings over the gangs a decade ago. Her audit is said to conclude that there is a need for a national inquiry.
It is easy to see why Keir Starmer wanted to avoid one. The racially-driven rape of thousands of mainly white girls is the worst race-hate crime in modern Britain. In inquiry after inquiry, it was revealed that the authorities had failed to prevent the crimes, often over fears of racism, and in some cases were actively complicit in the cover up. This is especially true for the Labour Party, which often relied on the votes of Pakistani-heritage people, the community which was most linked to the abuse. Kings College London academic David Betz has described this as “rapes for votes”. In the Rochdale grooming case, the police said that the grooming was not racially motivated.
Previously the argument was that there had been national level inquiries. In 2020 the Home Office published a report looking at the controversial element of ethnicity, but it was a whitewash. It failed to use the Home Office’s resources to look into this question in detail, relying on a summary of existing studies. But even those showed an over-representation of Pakistani-heritage abusers.
There was also the recent Independent Inquiry Into Child Sex Abuse but that, despite taking years to complete, only looked briefly at the issue of rape gangs. So far its recommendations have not been acted on and it failed to get to the root of the issue. Clearly there is a need for a proper inquiry.
That has been shown by groups like Open Justice, who used court sentencing remarks to track examples of girls being trafficked for abuse. Many of those data points showed girls being taken to Bradford for abuse, for example. But there have been few local prosecutions and the Council there has refused to hold a local inquiry. A national inquiry will be the only way for the victims there to get justice.
It will therefore be extremely important to see the terms of reference for the inquiry, as it will only be as good as the mandate it has. For the national inquiry to succeed, it should aim to send complicit officials to jail. To date, despite abject failings, no council worker or police officer has been. It needs to look at the role of anti-white racism among some ethnic minority groups, and the role played by anti-racist ideology in the failings of the authorities.
It should look, not just at the role of illegal immigration in these crimes, as suggested by Baroness Casey, but also that of legal immigration: in many cases these crimes were driven by foreign cultural attitudes to women and girls, especially white ones. That should include the subject of abuse within ethnic minority communities. It should also expose the scale and geographic spread of these crimes, sending task forces into places like Bradford. Finally, it should commit the National Crime Agency into following up every lead, so that victims denied justice, sometimes for decades, finally get it.
All this will be controversial. It will also be costly. It will cause the Prime Minister to have to look into some very dark places. But the full horror must be exposed and those responsible must be brought to justice.