The great grooming-gangs reverse ferret is upon us

Keir Starmer’s screeching u-turn on grooming gangs has been met with a near-uniform response in SW1. ‘We have always wanted an inquiry into grooming gangs’, every frontbencher now insists. As do Labour backbenchers, journalists and NGO blobbers. Curiously, some of the very same people who furiously opposed an inquiry, or dismissed the rape-gangs scandal as a far-right talking point, are now claiming to be eager for the truth to be revealed.

In January, 364 MPs, most of them Labour, voted against a Tory proposal to hold a statutory inquiry. Yet many of the same MPs now say they are ‘relieved’ an inquiry will now go ahead, and that it’s a ‘very welcome move’ and ‘the right decision’. Some claim that their opposition was purely procedural – in that the Tory amendment would have killed off Labour’s Children and Wellbeing Bill, and so they were duty bound to vote against it. This, of course, is nonsense. Much of the opposition to a national inquiry was fierce and visceral, and had little to do with parliamentary procedure.

Let’s not forget, it was only a few weeks ago when Lucy Powell, leader of the House of Commons, dismissed concerns about the grooming-gangs scandal as a racist ‘dogwhistle’, during a debate on BBC Radio 4. Indeed, it was only a few months ago when the UK prime minister himself accused those calling for a national inquiry of jumping on a ‘far-right bandwagon’.

Similar lines were, not all that long ago, trotted out by the media establishment. Back in May, Emily Maitlis, host of The News Agents, suggested it was ‘racist’ to focus on Pakistani Muslim perpetrators of grooming gangs, citing what must surely be a fictitious claim that there are ‘four times, eight times, 10 times as many white’ people committing these crimes. This week, Maitlis praised Louise Casey, whose audit prompted Starmer’s u-turn, for ‘pulling no punches’. As the report makes clear, the available evidence suggests that Pakistani Muslim men are overrepresented in these crimes, where officials have bothered to collect the data.

In the NGO sphere, Nick Lowles of Hope Not Hate said Starmer’s decision to open an inquiry ‘is the right one and should have been taken years ago’. It would be unfair to say Lowles had been silent on grooming gangs – he and Hope Not Hate have been calling out on-street grooming since the 2010s. But in 2023, he infamously condemned then home secretary Suella Braverman for highlighting the overrepresentation of Pakistani men among offenders, accusing her of ‘stirring up hate’. As anyone who has followed this scandal knows, it is precisely such spurious accusations of racism that have prevented the truth from coming out.

The prize for the most shameless reverse ferret surely has to go to Jess Phillips, the UK safeguarding minister. Speaking on Newsnight earlier this week, Phillips welcomed the inquiry and insisted she had ‘never turned a blind eye’ to the grooming gangs. This is the same Jess Phillips who not only resisted calls for a national statutory inquiry until about five minutes ago. She also announced in April that five local inquiries she had promised would no longer be led by independent judges, but by councils themselves. This was despite local authorities often having played a role in the cover-ups. She has watered down the government’s response to the rape gangs at every opportunity.

Of course, it is good news that the establishment has finally alighted on a sensible position. Ignoring these crimes has rightly become untenable. Still, we can’t let those who have sought to downplay, dismiss and deflect from this scandal now pose as crusaders for justice and truth. Their shameful behaviour must never be forgotten.