Before announcing on Saturday that he would commission a national inquiry into the grooming gangs scandal, Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer accused advocates for this move of jumping on a “far-right bandwagon.”
Other senior government officials have in recent months dismissed discussions on rape gangs as “dog whistle” politics riddled with “mistruths,” and described an inquiry as too “lengthy.”
Journalist Tim Stanley joked that this framing of an investigation must mean that Starmer, who has now called one himself, ought to be reported to Prevent, the UK’s counter-terror programme.
More seriously, Nigel Farage said the prime minister should now “apologise to the victims for the cynical way that he tried to avoid a proper grooming gang inquiry and for his insults to those that have tried to ensure the perpetrators are held to account.”
There were a number of causes of this about-turn, including a “national audit” into the grooming gangs which reports say explicitly linked the problem with men of Pakistani origin.
The U-turn will also undoubtedly have been forced by the impressive rise of Reform—ironic, given Labour’s previous dismissal of inquiry calls as “cheap headline [grabbing] and political opportunism.” Farage’s party is eating into what remains of the government’s support base, which has caused Starmer’s team to feign interest in matters with strong national backing.
Those who have been derided while calling for an inquiry will now be wary about the investigation’s set-up—that is, the questions it will look to answer and those it will appoint to ask them. On this point, Farage warned:
If this turns out to be a whitewash, the fury of the country will be hard to control. This needs to be a proper inquiry—with full terms-of-reference, on a sensible timescale.
Even if there are further attempts at a cover-up, the initiative would be allowed to compel witnesses, whose testimonies are likely to be informative in themselves.
