Head of Public Policy Tim Dieppe comments on grooming gangs in the UK, after major public figures sparked conversation about them on social media
It was March 2018 when the full extent of grooming gang abuse in Telford was revealed with a Sunday Mirror front page headline: “Britain’s ‘worst ever’ child grooming scandal exposed: Hundreds of young girls raped, beaten, sold for sex and some even KILLED.”
We learned then that this had been going on for over 40 years and authorities had failed to act for fear of being accused of ‘racism’ or ‘Islamophobia’ as mostly Pakistani Muslim men had been abusing mostly white girls on an industrial scale.
I wrote then about how we are sacrificing young girls to political correctness. I outlined the Islamic connection with statistics showing that a Muslim man was 127 times more likely to be convicted as part of a grooming gang than a non-Muslim. I also explained how some verses from the Qur’an are used to justify having sex slaves.
Jess Phillips blocks national inquiry
One Labour MP, Jess Phillips, also wrote about grooming gangs in March 2018.
She asked: “How many Telfords before we get serious about child grooming?”
She said: “I’m with Lucy Allan, Telfords MP, who is pressuring the government for an independent investigation into grooming in the town.”
Last year Oldham Council voted to write to the Home Secretary requesting a formal Public Inquiry into Sexual Exploitation in the borough.
This week it emerged that Jess Phillips, who is now Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls, replied to Oldham Council in October and refused the request for a Public Inquiry.
Phillips apologised for a delayed response to the letters, and she said that she believed “it is for Oldham Council alone to decide to commission an inquiry into child sexual exploitation locally, rather than for the Government to intervene”.
Constituency pressures
Jess Phillips is MP for Birmingham Yardley – a constituency where 45% of the electorate are Muslim. Her majority was cut from 13,141 to just 693 in a brutal campaign which Phillips described as the “worst election I have ever stood in.” There was intimidation and abuse in the campaign and Phillips was booed by Islamic campaigners during her acceptance speech.
Jess Phillips is very aware of the Muslims in her constituency and does not want to antagonise them if she can help it. This may well be why she is not keen to pursue an independent inquiry into grooming gangs which are predominantly Islamic. Here is the brutal reality of how Islam is influencing our politics.
Others join calls for a national inquiry
The Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Philip MP, and Shadow Minister for National Security and Safeguarding, Alicia Kearns MP, wrote a joint letter to the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and Jess Phillips calling for a national inquiry. They asked why Jess Phillips appears to have changed her position since her 2018 article. Leader of the Opposition Kemi Badenoch also joined calls for a full national inquiry into rape gangs.
Others were quick to point out that the Conservative government also rejected a request for a public inquiry into grooming gangs in Oldham in 2022. In fourteen years of power, the Conservatives never launched a national inquiry into this ongoing scandal.
Sir Keir and the CPS
Sir Keir Starmer was head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) between 2008 and 2013. Any national inquiry would need to look at the actions of the CPS when Sir Kier was in charge. A case against a rape suspect was dropped in 2009 despite very strong evidence. Sir Kier later admitted that the CPS had let down vulnerable young girls and admitted that ethnicity of suspects had been an issue in securing prosecutions of grooming gangs.
‘Avoid mentioning Islam’
Former MP for Rochdale Simon Danczuk claimed on Thursday that the former chairman of Labour’s parliamentary party warned him not to draw attention to the ethnicity or religion of grooming gangs because it could harm the party’s electoral chances.
He wrote: “The current MP for Rochdale, Tony Lloyd, who then represented Manchester Central, made attempts within Parliament to disassociate the grooming scandal from the Asian Muslim community – that is a matter of public record. He also said privately to me that the links should not be highlighted.”
Danczuk also said: “When the grooming scandal hit the town, Jim Dobbin MP also told me not to link the issue to the Asian Muslim community because it would have an adverse electoral impact.” Here is more evidence of Islam influencing our politics and what MPs are prepared to say in public. Many politicians have prioritised vote-winning over speaking truthfully about these grooming gangs. They have sacrificed young girls for their personal political ambitions.
Danczuk joined calls for a national inquiry saying: “I do think there should be a national inquiry into the grooming gangs also with the ability to prosecute those who turned a blind eye, or stopped and discouraged investigation.”
No one has been held accountable
The truth is that not one police officer or any other official has ever been prosecuted for turning a blind eye or refusing to tackle these grooming gangs, even though multiple examples of such failures have been recorded.
Robert Jenrick MP commented that grooming gangs are “perhaps the greatest racially motivated crime in modern Britain.” He should scrap ‘perhaps’.
He added: “Any connection with ethnicity, immigration or Islam was downplayed. The reports that have been published have been whitewashed – the evidence that British Pakistani men were over-represented among the perpetrators was spiked to avoid uncomfortable truths. But a recent study showed that, in Telford, one in 126 Muslim men were prosecuted between 1997 and 2017, and in Rotherham the figure was one in 73.”
What needs to happen?
I have written about Islamic grooming gangs multiple times since 2018. Most recently I criticised the review into Operation Span for not even mentioning ‘Islam’ or ‘Muslim’ once in 173 pages.
I am encouraged that now more people are willing to talk about this and even to discuss the Islamic connection. There has been a real shift on this in recent months and it is making a difference.
Here are my recommendations:
- Have a national inquiry which is fully independent of the government, and which has the power to prosecute police, social services or CPS staff who turned a blind eye or refused to tackle grooming gangs. Not one person has taken responsibility yet.
- Wholesale culture change is needed in the police and other services so that they are not afraid of tackling Islam-related crimes like these. Prosecution of officers who have turned a blind eye will go a long way to changing the culture.
- Stop pretending that it is nothing to do with Islam. Different cultures and religions have different beliefs, practices and outcomes – they are not interchangeable or equally good. We need to recognise this and be unafraid to say so.
- Pursue perpetrators for damages. I wrote about how one grooming gang victim, ‘Liz’, successfully sued her rapist for damages and was awarded £425,924.09 in a ground-breaking case in 2023. As far as I am aware this is the only case of its kind. Obtaining damages from perpetrators helps obtain some more justice for victims and will also act to discourage others.
- Longer prison sentences are also required for these offences. Offenders should not be back on the streets where their victims live after just a few years.
- Deport foreign nationals who have been convicted of grooming gang offences. They should forfeit any right to stay in this country.
- Stop mass immigration. In combination with our wrongheaded commitment to multiculturalism, unrestricted immigration is changing our culture and increasing the influence of Islam on our politics.
We have sacrificed young girls on the altar of political correctness for too long. It is time for it to stop. It is time for action, not words. It is time for those who aided the cover-up to face justice.
