The past few days have seen a new low in British politics, where one of the most sensitive and most troubling crimes – child abuse – has been politicised by two parties, the Conservatives and Reform.
Any person with an iota of common decency will acknowledge that child abuse, in any of its forms, by whoever the perpetrators are, is utterly abhorrent.
And all of us can agree that those guilty of abusing children should have the most severe sentence our courts can deliver.
That the authorities in some places, be they in local councils, the police, or any other institution, made the active choice to cover up child abuse is sickening, and every person responsible for this ought to be held to account.
When you search for ‘grooming gangs’ in Hansard from 2010 to end 2024, there are 183 results.
There’s an entry from Lee Anderson (2021) saying grooming gangs should be locked up. – I don’t agree with Anderson on many things, but on this I do agree with him.
But that’s it.
Not a single Conservative MP who is now actively vocal in recent days used the phrase ‘grooming gangs’ in parliament. That’s how much they actually cared about the subject.
And sadly, it’s even worse than that: one Conservative MP, Sajid Javid, when he was Home Secretary, stripped a British girl who had been groomed online by an organised gang of terrorists, of her citizenship. Instead of going after the groomers, Javid went after the victim of the groomers, Shamima Begum.
If she is indeed guilty of any crimes, she ought to be serving a prison sentence in our country, along with whatever professional services are required to address the fact that she was groomed, along with the subsequent trauma of finding herself subjected to the whims of womanising terrorists overseas.
There’s a desperation in the calls from Conservative/Reform MPs; it’s a faux anger, because instead of calling to enact the 20 recommendations from the Alexis Jay Inquiry, which took seven years, they’re focused on calling for another inquiry instead.
If they cared more about providing victims of child abuse, specifically from grooming gangs, help, support, and putting in place a framework to prevent the situation arising again, they would be supporting Labour and helping deliver those 20 recommendations.
Instead, they’re using the experience of the most vulnerable in society to sow division in our society.
Grown-ups will find a way to collaborate, the immature will cause frustration, upset, division, and the inevitable delay in improving the situation of victims.
How many more years before another inquiry reports and action is taken? Start with the action we know needs to be taken now and then build on that. That’s what someone who is genuinely concerned about children’s welfare would do.
This is what I’m struggling with at the moment, that there are those elected to political office in our country who, instead of working together collaboratively to address the subject, their egos, their arrogance, their sense of self importance, are all brought to the fore instead
We saw this sense of shamelessness back in 2016, where the EU was blamed for failings within our own country, despite those failings being the result of decisions made by the then Conservative government who imposed austerity weakening public services, creating a climate of such discomfort that people’s rightly-held frustrations were exploited to deliver change to our society that has been a disaster on multiple fronts, whether its the economy, our immigration policy, or anything else.
The easy answer in this case is to say that Brexit was never delivered, but that overlooks the narrative that, having taken back control, we were promised that we would be in sunlit upland. This view was solidified by the primary driver of Brexit, Nigel Farage, who himself said the worse case scenario economically would be better off than if we were still in the EU.
That clearly is not the case.
So as a society we have mass frustration, disorientation, even anger – a lot of it entirely understandable. A mistrust in politicians, mostly due to the past 14 years of Conservative policy failures. And a desperate desire to want better and more.
There’s that natural urge, that instinct, in everyone, which says: this is not how it should be, it ought to be better. But often that desire is hijacked under the banner of patriotism
I’ll tell you what is patriotic, it is to address the valid concerns of people without exploiting people’s nature, or good will.
A patriot would explain that the fastest way to deliver justice to the victims of child abuse, specifically grooming gangs, is to push ahead with the recommendations from an inquiry which took seven years, and then also, in addition, work with the Labour government to pursue further the grooming gangs, to find those responsible for cover ups, and to prosecute them. That’s what a patriot would do.
On a side note, it is ironic that Labour have a program of targeting gangs that traffic refugees and asylum seekers across the channel, and the Conservatives/Reform make the case that going after the gangs won’t stop the activity. Yet, when it comes to grooming gangs they want to go full hog against gangs.
The parallel to Rwanda as a deterrent would be to set up a deterrent for grooming gangs and say that’s enough. When it shouldn’t be either/or, but both.
Of course, in this situation, I agree with Labour’s efforts to go after the gangs, but the actual solution is to open safe and clear legal routes for asylum seekers to apply and be processed fast, and those who do not qualify to be rejected, and if they’re already here, removed.
Some say Elon Musk’s intervention has pushed this issue further, but, actually, Labour had already begun work on child abuse, and the target of so many people’s anger, Jess Phillips, is literally the Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls.
So this is where I am today, initially frustrated, but actually sad.
There’s a verse in the Quran (2:11-12) which reads,
“And when it is said to them, ‘Do not cause mischief and corruption on the earth,’ they say, ‘We are only reformers”
There are people in society who will address issues and seek change through collaboration, working together, for the good of everyone. And there are those who will exploit the valid concerns people have for their own gains.
The latter do not solve problems, they sustain problems, because problems are the things which allow them to thrive. And by solving the problem, they take away their own oxygen, because their survival isn’t built on working together, it is through sowing division.
Perhaps the best example of this is the man who wanted to be ‘world king’ who despite being pro Europe, sold his integrity for a shot at becoming Prime Minister. He sowed division in society and when he won, and became PM, he was so bad at it, he was booted out by his own Conservative MPs.
Remember the time he spent telling people to follow the rules he created and then broke all of them? From wine-time Fridays to parties so debauched that drunk attendees threw up everywhere, to “let the bodies pile high”, and every other disaster in this person’s wake.
In fact it’s so bad for Boris Johnson that in his world tour to promote his book the only benefit of Brexit he can actually cite is the thing we did while still being inside the EU and under EU law – our vaccine programme. Hungary, Austria, Denmark all had their own vaccine program/partnerships along with being involved in the EU programme.
Johnson feels this sense of achievement every time he repeats his story, as if somehow his lies and deceptions have been validated. You also see that smugness on other peoples’ faces.
Robert Jenrick, the other day on BBC News, suggested that Keir Starmer said that those raising concerns about criminal gangs are of the far right. Despite being corrected by Jon Kay, he repeated his statement again with different words
Anyone with an iota of comprehension could see he simply rephrased his lie. But the look on Jenrick’s face then, just like the look on Johnson’s face, or the look on Farage’s face, the look on all of their faces when they speak the words which they feel make their point, despite their points being riddled with so many flaws!
Those looks are the embodiment of causing mischief; we all see it, every time their lie, deceive or mislead, and yet they all feel as if they have accomplished a masterful deception. They have not.
On Dec 8, the former National Police Lead for Child Protection, Simon Bailey, shared on Channel 4 News that grooming gangs account for less than 3 per cent of all child sexual abuse cases.
What I’d like to see from Labour is the rolling out of all 20 recommendations from the Alexis Jay Inquiry report, and an initiative to find, shut down and prosecute the gangs responsible for 3 per cent of child abuse cases.
A lot is said of “Pakistani grooming gangs,” and little is said of the white gangs. Maybe it’s easier for some people to blame others, as it helps them feel better by ignoring criminality within their own ethnicity.
And here’s a thought, does the young girl or boy who is a victim of child sexual abuse care whether the gangs raping her are brown, black or white? Or is she more concerned about that fact that she’s being attacked?
There are 1.6 milion British Pakistanis in the UK. To suggest that British Pakistanis are all involved in this or know that this is going on is an absurdity. In fact 15 of the current MPs in Parliament are British Pakistani, Labour and Conservative.
Let’s encourage our police to identify every person involved in these crimes, whatever their ethnicity, and where further analysis on why some people in certain cultures seem to be involved in this behaviour is needed, that too should be explored, whether it’s Pakistani heritage, English heritage, or other.
Being anti-women, viewing girls as objects to be exploited, that isn’t the preserve of “medieval alien cultures” as Badenoch and Jenrick would have you believe. Having these disgusting abusive attitudes to people is a flaw in human beings in every culture.
Ghislaine Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in jail for grooming and trafficking underage girls in London and New York – her’s is not a very Pakistani name. She is white British.
And given what happened, are we suggesting that London and New York are “medieval alien cultures?”
Maxwell and Epstein were both prosecuted for running a grooming gang, one of the most high profile ones: that’s an American and a Brit.
No one is suggesting that all Americans or all Brits agree with their child abuse, or that all Americans or all Brits therefore know of child abuse by other Americans and other Brits.
Every culture suffers from patriarchy and misogyny, that’s why we have so many initiatives to address gender, racial, and all other bias
And ironically, populists calling these initiatives ‘woke’ while also calling for action, seems as if they’re confused and unwilling to acknowledge that the thing they call ‘woke’ is the very thing that is designed to improve the quality of life for everyone
If we look for solutions in people who shout the loudest, who thrive on division, who for years don’t even raise their voices in parliament, yet have now jumped on a bandwagon and insist they are the defenders or women and girls; if these are the people who you trust to find deliver, then prepare yourself for the problems to continue.
And better, ask yourself why your standards and expectations are so low that you rely on this type of divisive rhetoric to deliver meaningful, long-term change.
Like everyone who is genuinely upset and angry at what has happened. I want all of us to expect more from our politicians, from our police, from our local councils, from anyone and everyone who seeks a role in public life.
And for me, my frustration is that far too much attention is given to those who divide and not enough support is given to those who are taking action.
Yes, call out inaction, expect more, but collaborative work is the way society – all of society – will improve
Anyway, for anyone made it this far in my rant, I’m taking the day off politics because it’s all so overwhelming.
Instead I’ll spend today posting a series of flower photos with inspiring quotes, a reminder that in the world around us, no matter how cold it is, figuratively and literally, there are glimpses of order, of beauty, of what humanity can curate in a garden or a greenhouse, of something so simple, that while we often walk past without noticing, it is life, growing, blossoming, inspiring, and, for those of us lucky enough to be appreciative and grateful, a way to find peace.
Humanity, do better, please.
*WCV composite/Clockwise from top: Jenrick photo by UK Government, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons; Musk photo by Wcamp9, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons; Badenoch photo courtesy of No 10 Downing Street, OGL 3 <http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3>, via Wikimedia Commons; Farage photo by Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America CC licence 2.0