Pressure is building for a new inquiry into grooming gangs (Image: Matthew Pover)
The appalling abuse of young girls by grooming gangs has cast a dark shadow over our nation. So, it is now right to look again at what occurred for years in Rochdale, Rotherham, Telford, Oxford and elsewhere, why it happened and how it was ignored or concealed.
Shockingly, past efforts to address all these questions have been consistently hindered by an immovable reluctance to fully investigate the scandal, primarily driven by a fear of labelling or offending particular ethnic minorities.
The young people, often the most vulnerable, who were preyed upon by organised grooming gangs in towns and cities across Britain deserve better.
The scale of the suffering — from Rotherham, where approximately 1,400 youngsters were sexually exploited, to Telford, with reports suggesting that up to 1,000 girls may have been abused — is staggering.
Yet, as these crimes were suspected and reported, the response from those charged with safeguarding children was thoroughly inadequate and, sometimes, equivalent to culpability.
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Even now some want to shut down scrutiny of this outrage – when my colleague Robert Jenrick MP wisely raised the issue, the Prime Minister disgracefully tried to shut down discussion by claiming that such concerns were the preserve of ‘the far right’.
Such reticence to defend the victims, pursue the culprits and adequately investigate the root causes of this scandal amounts to a conspiracy of silence.
The warped view that it is contentious to accept the racial elements of these vile crimes spawns institutional failure, whereby social services are reluctant to act, police officers are hesitant to investigate and councils are unwilling to confront uncomfortable realities.
The plain fact is that most of this abuse of young women and children was perpetuated by depraved men of Pakistani origin. Their prey being almost exclusively white girls, some survivors’ testimonies suggest that racial hatred fuelled the lust of these perverts.
It seems the systemic inability to acknowledge this, for fear of being labelled racist, led to the sustained predation of young white girls in communities that appear to have been oblivious. Crucially, it has led to an irreparable failure in our duty of care for the victims, who surely must always be at the forefront of our considerations and decisions.
The reality of these perpetrators’ demographic obliges us to questions about the root cause of their deviance.
Sir Trevor Phillips, back in 2005, opined that multicultural ideology has produced a form of ‘ghettoisation’ where multiple, co-existing introspective segregated subcultures, with little or no grasp of prevailing British values, perpetuate.
In short, our relentless pursuit of multiculturalism, not as a reflection of a fluid multiracial mix, but as a dogmatic doctrine, stymies the integration of immigrants to the UK, thus fuelling social disintegration.
It is both necessary and proper that those who choose to come to Britain from abroad recognise our national values and abide by the law. Resultant integration is an inherent tenet on which anyone’s residency here should be built.
In the case of grooming gangs, it seems certain that backward assumptions and attitudes, entirely incompatible with those of our nation, particularly with regard to the treatment of females, have been imported.
The blind pursuit of multiculturalism has relegated British values as imported foreign prejudices predominate in parts of Britain; grooming gangs being a palpable product of this awful reality.
When a technocratic reductionist view of politics stifles our ability to address and act on such matters, the hopes, fears – and in this case horrors – of real-life Britain are neglected.
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So, it is clear there should be a full-scale public inquiry into this organised crime. David Cameron, to his credit, acted on this matter commissioning an independent report on the scandal by Professor Jay in 2014.
This was undoubtedly helpful and its many recommendations should be implemented. Nevertheless, a further investigation would not only allow us to explore the racial cultural roots of this scandal, but also, crucially, allow a greater focus on victims.
Every action taken henceforth must promote justice for those who have suffered and only a full inquiry can adequately serve this purpose. In recent times, much of the establishment has been largely silent, if this silence persists, we shouldn’t be surprised if others act where we do not.
The riots last summer serve as a fair warning of the perils of such a trajectory. We must act now, lest we see the void created by our inertia filled by significantly more malignant forces.