With Baroness Louise Casey recommending a full national statutory inquiry into grooming gangs, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has committed to one. But, many will be asking: why did it take him so long?

For months, the Labour leader has been criticised by various quarters for refusing to hold a national public investigation into grooming gangs — formally known as group-localised child sexual exploitation (GLCSE). Thrust back into the spotlight by Elon Musk at the beginning of the year, the Labour leadership has until now refused to authorise a national inquiry.

Instead, back in January, home secretary Yvette Cooper announced plans for a rapid national audit into the cultural and societal drivers of GLCSE (led by Baroness Casey), along with five government-backed local inquiries (all on a shoestring budget of £10 million). It then appeared that the government watered down these plans by later announcing that councils would be able to access a paltry £5 million fund to support “locally-led work” on grooming gangs.

Bar a select number of Labour backbenchers, along with “Blue Labour” grandee Maurice Glasman, the governing party has been incredibly reluctant to hold a national statutory inquiry. There are a variety of potential factors at play. Sir Trevor Phillips, former chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), has claimed the government’s hesitancy over investigating grooming-gang activity was down to “obviously political” reasons because of the “demographic of people involved”.

When looking at the perpetrators of GLCSE, a 2020 academic paper co-authored by two professors, Kish Bhatti-Sinclair and Charles Sutcliffe, concluded that “Muslims, particularly Pakistanis, dominate GLCSE prosecutions” (based on data consisting of 498 defendants in 73 prosecutions between 1997 and 2017). This corresponds with the findings of reports on industrial-scale GLCSE in English towns such as Rotherham in south Yorkshire and Telford in Shropshire.

The reality is that in many parts of the country, Labour has traditionally electorally benefited from the deep-seated group identity of communities which are overrepresented in grooming-gang participation. Indeed, this biraderi-style clannishness in relatively segregated Mirpuri-origin populations is likely to be flagged in Casey’s yet-to-be-published report as a key cultural driver of GLCSE. There may be long-standing fears within the Labour Party that a comprehensive public investigation into grooming gangs would feed into the vilification of an ethno-religious community that has historically provided it with considerable electoral support.

Shedding further light on the role of Kashmiri-heritage predatory enterprises — some involving relatives across the generations — also risks weakening the “progressive” narrative that modern Britain is an integration success story and a paragon of multiculturalism. With many victims of GLCSE being white-British working-class girls who were disproportionately in the care system and suffering from learning difficulties, theories of “white privilege” and “oppressed minorities” look all the more irrelevant.

Of course, there is a degree of self-preservation on Labour’s part. Some of the most egregious cases of institutional mismanagement over grooming-gang abuses took place in historically Labour-controlled local authorities. One example was the premature closing down of Operation Augusta, a police and social services investigation into child sexual exploitation which was axed by Greater Manchester Police (GMP) with the support of Manchester City Council (which has been under Labour majority control since 1971).

Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council has been under Labour control since its creation back in 1974. Telford has generally been under local Labour control (apart from short stints of no party having overall control, with the Conservatives being in charge from 2008-2011). Shaun Davies, the current Labour MP for Telford, initially rejected calls for an inquiry into grooming gangs operating in the town when he was leader of Telford and Wrekin Council. A comprehensive national statutory inquiry into grooming gangs is likely to uncover the true extent of Labour’s grim record when it comes to protecting the most vulnerable in local communities.

Starmer could have made this choice months ago, putting real distance between his record and that of the Conservative Party which over 14 years failed to launch such an inquiry. Instead, Labour may be condemned for having delayed the decision and only acting as the result of an audit, despite there being enough evidence for an inquiry for years. But Baroness Casey has left the Prime Minister with no choice. Now there is no hiding place for the Labour government.

---

Dr Rakib Ehsan is a researcher specialising in British ethnic minority socio-political attitudes, with a particular focus on the effects of social integration and intergroup relations.

 

rakibehsan

---