Former Racial Equality Chief Phillips Slams ‘Shameful’ Labour for Dropping Local Rape Gang Inquiries – Guido Fawkes

Former Racial Equality Chief Phillips Slams ‘Shameful’ Labour for Dropping Local Rape Gang Inquiries

Home Office minister Jess Phillips quietly announced that the government has dropped its much-vaunted five local grooming gang inquiries. She said they’d take “flexible approach,” with the £5 million given to councils if they choose to support rape gang work instead. Just 45 minutes before MPs packed up for recess…

The Home Office insists the change doesn’t necessarily mean the inquiries are off the table, just that they won’t be “prescriptive”. Robert Jenrick called it yet another example of Labour’s “two-tier justice system” – pointing out that “more people have been sentenced for the Rotherham summer riots than for decades of rape gang abuse in the same town.” Meanwhile, Nigel Farage slammed the decision as “disgraceful and cowardly”… 

Sky News presenter Trevor Phillips, former head of the Commission for Racial Equality and the Equality and Human Rights Commission, hit the airwaves today to express his outrage over Labour’s “political” move. He said on Times Radio:

“I think what the government is doing on that question is utterly, utterly shameful. Utterly shameful. And it is so obviously political. Because it’s so obvious that they’re not doing this because of the demographic of the people involved, as Katie Lam, the Tory MP, said yesterday, largely Pakistani Muslim in background, and also in Labour held seats and councils who would be offended by it. And that’s clearly the reason that they’re not pursuing this. The problem is that the centre left has put all sorts of barriers around what it can talk about, what it may speak out about.”

After almost everyone promised one it looks like the only ‘inquiry’ left will be ex-Reform MP Rupert Lowe’s personal one, which has raised £527,931 so far…