Sir Keir Starmer claimed in January that those who were concerned about the systematic rape and abuse of little girls were ‘calling for inquiries because they want to jump on a bandwagon of the far right’. Yesterday, Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, promised that victims would finally get the full national inquiry which campaigners have been demanding for so many years.
If Starmer has any sense, he will bring out his party’s bodies willingly before he is forced to
Cooper’s statement in the Commons was relatively encouraging. She conceded that much of the (admittedly shoddy) data around child grooming points to ‘clear evidence of overrepresentation amongst suspects of Asian and Pakistani heritage men’. She admitted that there is evidence of ‘many organisations avoiding the topic [of grooming gangs] altogether for fear of seeming racist or raising community tensions.’ The government has also finally promised to collect ethnicity data for these crimes – something successive ministers have been reluctant to do.
But why the sudden U-turn? Have Labour ministers suddenly had a collective moral epiphany? How can a cause be ‘racist’ one minute, and suddenly worthy of attention the next?
The answer: Labour have been backed into a corner. They never wanted to have this inquiry. Ministers hoped that the public outrage about the vile crimes committed against women and girls, and the total failure of institutions to protect them, would die down. They thought an inadequate six-month review, with a focus on just a few towns, might be enough to appease public anger.
This is not what was delivered. Baroness Casey’s audit of group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse is damning. The 200-page report which was published yesterday details how institutions consistently ignored victims. An entire chapter is entitled ‘Denial’. Girls as young as ten were systematically raped and groomed by much older perpetrators. They were described by those in positions of power as ‘child prostitutes’ and often treated as criminals while their abusers walked free. The audit notes that a ‘significant proportion of these cases appear to involve suspects who are non-UK nationals and/or who are claiming asylum in the UK’. This argument – dismissed as a right-wing dogwhistle just a few months ago – has now been confirmed as fact in a government report.
Blindsided by Casey’s findings, Starmer changed his tune on Saturday, committing to a national inquiry before the report was made public. So, can we trust the Prime Minister? A quick look at his closest allies answers that question: No.
Shaun Davies, the Labour MP for Telford, was elected in 2024 and immediately given a place on the Home Affairs Select Committee – a group tasked with scrutiny of inquiries into grooming. Before that he led Telford and Wrekin Council – one of the areas worst impacted by child grooming.
Councils run many of the support services for victims of child sexual exploitation. So how did Davies advocate for victims? On at least one occasion, he seems to have actively stood in the way of justice.
In 2016, Telford’s Conservative MP, Lucy Allan, called for a statutory inquiry into child grooming in Telford. Contacted by survivors who wanted justice, she set out on a campaign to help them.
But Davies rejected calls for an inquiry. He signed a letter to the Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, claiming that ‘we do not feel at this time that a further inquiry is necessary’.
It would take six more years for victims to get that inquiry. When it did arrive, it was non-statutory, meaning the chair was unable to compel witnesses to give evidence. The report found huge failings on behalf of the council. Will Davies apologise to those who felt that he let them down?
Today, after Cooper’s statement, Davies stood up to speak. Did he apologise? No. Instead, he claimed that Telford chose to have a ‘local-based review’ (as opposed to statutory) because ‘the then Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, and the then local government minister, Rishi Sunak, refused to provide a statutory inquiry into Telford’. He made no reference to the letter that he signed in 2016.
Davies is not unique. There are others like him on Labour-run councils across the country, whom victims of the grooming gangs feel could have done more to help them get justice.
Is this why Starmer fought as hard as he could against an inquiry? He surely knew that some Labour politicians would be caught in the crossfire.
Starmer had no choice but to cave on a grooming gang inquiry. The evidence in Baroness Casey’s report is so devastatingly damning that it cannot be ignored. Now, Labour must wait for the inquiry’s findings. If Starmer has any sense, he will bring out his party’s bodies willingly before he is forced to.
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