Labour Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, has broken ranks with Sir Keir Starmer, by calling for a national inquiry into child rape gangs in the UK.
Burnham’s demand adds significant pressure on Prime Minister after he blocked a Conservative motion for a similar investigation.
Despite the Labour Party’s official stance to vote down the Conservative proposal, several senior members, including Sir Keir Starmer, Deputy Leader Angela Rayner, Chancellor Rachel Reeves, Foreign Secretary David Lammy, and Health Secretary Wes Streeting, were notably absent from the vote. Downing Street attributed their absence to diary clashes, denying accusations that the ministers had intentionally avoided the vote to evade public backlash.
Burnham, who has previously commissioned local reviews on the issue, criticized the lack of a national inquiry into the scandal. Speaking to the BBC, he said, “I do think there is the case for a limited national inquiry that draws on reviews like the one that I commissioned, and the one we have seen in Rotherham, the one we have seen in Telford, to draw out some of these national issues and compel people to give evidence who then may have charges to answer and be held to account.”
He argued that local inquiries, which Keir Starmer supports, lack the authority to compel witnesses to appear. Burnham admitted, “That is something I couldn’t do at my level,” underlining the necessity for a broader, more powerful investigation.
Meanwhile, a No 10 spokesperson responded by stating that the government would follow the wishes of the victims, who have reportedly expressed opposition to the idea of a national inquiry.
In an impassioned interview, Labour MP Jess Phillips emphasized that grooming gangs are a nationwide issue. "There are grooming gangs in every single part of our country," Phillips said on Sky's Electoral Dysfunction podcast. She also extended an "open invitation" to Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch to meet with victims of grooming gangs.
Grooming gangs and ethnic stereotyping
The grooming gangs issue has sparked wider debates, including accusations of harmful ethnic stereotyping. Four councils—Oxford, Newcastle, Manchester, and Calderdale—are reportedly backing a motion to classify the term “Asian grooming gangs” as Islamophobic.
A report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for British Muslims argues that the term perpetuates damaging stereotypes about Islam, contributing to increased hate crimes against Muslims.
Additionally, new data from the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) reveals that the majority of group-based child sexual abuse offenders are white. According to figures for the first three quarters of 2024, 85% of offenders identified in grooming gang cases were white, while the number stood at 83% for 2023.
Richard Fewkes, director of the NPCC’s Hydrant programme, emphasized that there is no significant issue with any particular ethnicity or setting in child sexual abuse cases.
The controversy surrounding the use of the term "Asian" gained international attention when Tesla CEO Elon Musk expressed support for Indian MP Priyanka Chaturvedi’s objection to the term. Chaturvedi criticized the generalization, calling for the term “Pakistani grooming gangs” to replace “Asian grooming gangs,” stating, “Why should Asians take the fall for one absolute rogue nation?” Musk replied affirmatively to her statement.
The backlash against Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s use of “Asian” has also come from UK-based Indian diaspora groups. The Network of Sikh Organisations (NSO) condemned the broad labelling, noting that it has made addressing the issue more difficult and worsened the situation for victims.
