Labour and Grooming Gangs : Why Some Politicians Want It All Kicked into the Long Grass
Last month, the Government agreed to hold a new national inquiry into grooming gangs.
Like the Government, I was initially sceptical. The Jay Inquiry already spent seven years investigating historic child sexual exploitation, producing a raft of recommendations that the then-Conservative Government undermined and ignored.
National inquiries are good at producing policy papers, but they rarely lead to justice for victims, prosecutions for perpetrators, or accountability for those who turned a blind eye. Another national inquiry risks kicking the whole problem into the long grass—again—for a few more years.
Labour’s Local Approach Is Working
The incoming Labour Government took a different route. They agreed to implement the Jay Review’s findings but also announced a series of local inquiries, backed by extra police funding.
This is a better approach. Local inquiries plus more cops = more convictions. It’s not complicated.
But there was something odd.
Labour announced an initial five inquiries… without naming the locations. Questions from Jess Phillips in the House didn’t get straight answers. No list. No timeline. No map.
Weird.
What We Now Know
Since then, though, the picture has started to emerge—through arrests, not press releases.
- West Yorkshire Police have arrested 13 people over historic grooming gang offences in Bradford.
- Greater Manchester Police (GMP) have arrested 18, believed to be linked to Oldham.
- Five of those arrested were former GMP officers.
- GMP reportedly has over 1,000 suspects under investigation.
Three things are now clear:
- A huge number of historic cases—many dropped or ignored over the last 20 years—are being reopened.
- There was a failure by Conservative governments (2010–2014) to properly investigate grooming gang activity. Whether that was deliberate policy (see the Boris Johnson clip above) or the result of austerity and de-prioritisation is up for debate.
- The secrecy around the list of inquiry locations appears to be intentional: to prevent suspects fleeing. Many have ties to countries like Pakistan, with no extradition treaty. The police don’t want to tip them off.
National Inquiry Is Going Ahead—But in Parallel
What hasn’t been widely reported is that the new national inquiry will still go ahead, but alongside the local investigations. It won’t replace them.
So why were so many in the Conservative Party and Reform UK desperate to replace Labour’s local model with another national inquiry?
Why the eagerness to delay things?
A Party Problem?
It’s true that some of the grooming gangs operated in areas run by Labour-controlled councils.
But they weren’t the only ones.
- Bradford—flagship Conservative authority during the time of the abuse.
- Blackpool—also Tory-run.
- Doncaster—run by the English Democrats, now absorbed into Reform UK.
Many of the Conservative councillors in those areas have since defected to Reform.
So let’s ask the awkward question:
Could it be that a full investigation threatens to expose not just Labour failings, but a catalogue of neglect by Conservative and Reform Councilllors?
Follow the Map, Follow the Money
I’m no fan of GB News. It’s losing nearly £1 million a week—kept alive by finance from Dubai, via institutions with links to Russia.
That said, I was struck by a map they produced of grooming gang networks. (If they’re right—and that’s a big if—it’s revealing.)
Many of the uninvestigated areas were Conservative-run. Many of the councillors who failed to act are now with Reform.
Maybe that’s what changed Keir Starmer’s mind. Maybe that’s how Baroness Casey persuaded him a national inquiry could run in parallel—not as a delaying tactic, but as a complement to the real work being done on the ground.
One Last Question
Here’s one for the record:
How did Eric Pickles, the former Conservative leader of Bradford Council, manage to convince Eric Pickles, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, not to order an inquiry into grooming gangs in Bradford?
Odd how that works.
https://www.gbnews.com/news/grooming-gangs-three-maps-crisis-scandal
Kind of off-topic, but it’s revealing that the GB News map uses historic (pre-1974) county boundaries.
I think that is a good thing. Durham should regain it’s historic lands!!
Love the Colombo moment at the end.
Worth remembering that Cyril Smith was a busy boy in Rochdale in the 60s through to at least the late 70s, and while fictional ‘Jack’s Return Home’ has the collusion of local councillors and sexual abuse in Doncaster, plus the historic collusion between the Met and organised vice is well documented.
My view is that Pakistani immigrants stepped into the lower rungs of existing sexual abuse networks, as they moved into jobs like taxi drivers and care workers (ie specific targeting of vulnerable children in Oxford).
Thanks, and yes I agree, they took over the bottom rungs of existing exploitation networks, that had served the establishment for decades.