Keir Starmer is set to block a national inquiry into child grooming gangs in Parliament today, ordering his MPs to oppose an amendment tabled by Tory leader Kemi Badenoch that would trigger a new official inquiry. The Mail has more.
With Labour holding a massive majority in the House, it means the bid is almost certain to fail.
Sir Keir – who has been fending off an extraordinary social media attack on the issue from U.S. billionaire Elon Musk – accused the Conservatives of “shocking” tactics by tagging the measure on to the wider Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.
“I would implore any right-thinking Tory MP to vote for the Bill because this would kill the Bill, this would kill the legislation,” he told the Mirror.
The issue is likely to come up when the leaders clash at the first PMQs session since the Christmas break at noon, before the expected vote this evening.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said the decision showed “total moral cowardice”.
“The victims of these heinous child rape gangs deserve honesty, and they deserve the truth,” he said.
Mr. Philp said previous inquiries had failed to get to the bottom of the issue.
“Labour’s decision risks perpetuating the cover-up of the rape gangs,” he said.
“There will be many Labour MPs in constituencies where these awful crimes took place and where victims still seek justice. They now need to think long and hard about which side of history they want to be on.”
The scandal involved the rape and sexual abuse of thousands of white girls by gangs of predominantly Pakistani-origin men.
Campaigners against child sex abuse also urged the Prime Minister to reconsider.
Victims campaigner Dame Jasvinder Sanghera said she “fully supported” a public inquiry – and warned that rape and abuse of young girls by gangs of men was still continuing.
“Let’s be clear, this is still happening,” she told Times Radio. “This isn’t something that used to happen. This is still happening today. I’m sure the perpetrators of this kind of abuse will look for different ways of manipulating the system so we have to look at this as a whole and have a broader conversation.”
Dame Jasvinder said the Government’s approach to multiculturalism still appeared to be to “minimise the risk of offending communities as opposed to actually dealing with the very problem”.
But on a round of broadcast interviews this morning, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson branded the Tory approach “sickening”.
Worth reading in full.
The Telegraph explains the process:
The Bill is due to face its second reading debate this afternoon which is the first big hurdle legislation must clear and is when MPs debate and vote on the broad principles of a Bill. Amendments seeking to make changes to a Bill are not allowed at second reading.
So the Tories and Reform have instead tabled what are called “reasoned amendments” which set out reasons for objecting to a Bill rather than proposed changes.
If a “reasoned amendment” is passed by the Commons it has the effect of killing off the Bill it is attached to.
So with today’s action it is possible for Labour to try to argue that it is all about the Tories and Reform trying to kill the Bill while the Tories and Reform can try to keep the focus purely on the inquiry issue.
The Tories also oppose the Bill because it takes the axe to the freedom of academies:
Shadow Education Secretary Laura Trott told Sky News: “Academies are being abolished in all but name as part of this Bill and we completely oppose that and everybody should.”
The Tory frontbencher argued that the Bill would strip academies of many of the freedoms they currently have on things like teacher pay and admissions.
Elon Musk kept the pressure on this morning, tweeting: “Now why would Keir Starmtrooper order his own party to block such an inquiry? Because he is hiding terrible things. That is why.”
Independent Oldham Councillor Abdul Wahid has said Keir Starmer needs to “stop deflecting” from the issue of grooming gangs by “calling everybody far-Right”, adding: “Why would anybody with an ounce of humanity deny the public a fair and independent inquiry?”
Stop Press: MPs voted by 364 votes to 111 against Kemi Badenoch’s call for a new inquiry.
Watch Kemi tell Parliament that Starmer “doesn’t want questions asked of Labour politicians who may be complicit“. (Though Farage pointed out that “as Women and Equalities Minister from 2022 to 2024 [Badenoch] didn’t meet a single victim of these rapes and never raised the issue once”.)
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Let’s supposed everyone acted like Coutts and refused to provide service to those who don’t adhere to what is clearly a pre-established way of thinking.
Does that mean the supermarket should stop selling to Farange, so he couldn’t buy groceries anywhere? Should all the petrol stations stop serving him? The train companies and airlines would obviously have to stop selling him tickets. Restaurants should ban him.
If everyone took the same high and mighty stance that Coutts did (and the other banks who refused him an account subsequently), then he could effectively be cancelled from life.
And if they don’t, does that mean that they are socially irresponsible for not imposing the right belief system? I guess that is what proponents of ESG, DEI, CSR and all the bullshit actually must believe.
When the left’s ideas are taken to their logical end, you end up with grotesque totalitarianism. That’s if you get there and don’t get driven to insanity first, if you can survive the trans lunacy, the climate lunacy and all the other waypoints to their totalitarian hell.
This creates great opportunities for businesses who don’t discriminate in this way. In fact, new businesses such as Public Square (https://publicsq.com/in-the-news) and other unwoke companies in the US are expanding massively by taking advantage of this very opportunity.
It is a belief system without any conviction from its adherents. I doubt whether the individuals in those banks actually believe 100% in the righteousness of their stance but they do it because it looks good to everyone else doing the same thing.
Of course CBDCs are the ultimate wet dream since they absolve all the banks and businesses of any responsibility whatsoever in terms of transactions, since it’s out of their hands – and there is nowhere one can take one’s complaints. If this had happened – and I’m sure it has – to someone less high profile than Nigel Farage, then that person would still be languishing in the social doldrums, cancelled from society.
We heard about the Canadian truckers’ bank accounts being “frozen”. Does anyone know if they were ever “unfrozen”?
A spotlight needs to be shone on the creepy companies that trawl personal data, build profiles on us all and sell these profiles to the banks amongst others.
Swamp banks with subject access requests to find out.
They’ll just stop replying.
People have been given a legitimate reason to ask so they can’t be readily dismissed. Unlike FOI, it can’t be conveniently categorised as “malicious”.
Non-response requires the regulator to take action.
If the regulator doesn’t take action that poses its own questions.
Your last thought has a precedent. MHRA were swamped by COVID vaccine yellow cards, so they simply excluded them from analysis because they upset the pattern.
This is a different process. It requires data to be provided to the requestor. Yellow Cards is more of a black hole.
I’m not suggesting that people would receive a response or that the regulator would take action. It’s what should happen and if it doesn’t it highlights yet more issues.
As soon as Poland’s GDP gets to the point where they would have to become a contributor to rather than recipient of EU largess, they will Pexit, if not before.
With most of Europe destroying itself through mass immigration of economic migrants from Islamic countries and the imposition of net zero madness, countries like Poland and Hungary stand out as beacons of common sense and hope.
Not when you see their foreign policy viz the war on their borders..
Please expand / explain…
Meant to reply to you and replied to myself instead…The fog of war and all that.
US Army stakes out permanent presence in Poland with ‘Camp K’ | Stars and Stripes
Russia-Ukraine war live: US-supplied cluster bombs ‘having an impact’ on Russian defences, Washington says (theguardian.com)
Poking the bear is not standing out as beacons of common sense and hope IMO.
Their right as a nation to do what they want.
Hungary too. They are constantly flipping the finger at the EU PTBs
Spent a month in Budapest last year, getting my teeth fixed. Fantastic job, cost maybe 1/3r of what I’d pay over here. Fell in love with Budapest, and were I 21 and 71 I’d be out there in a shot. This is the Great Market, down near the river. If you are a meat lover (my wife and I are Carnivores) it’s a place to go!
“Broadcaster Jon Sopel has issued an apology to Nigel Farage after previously poking fun at the former UKIP leader’s cancelled account with bank Coutts,”
I know he’s not apologising to me, but apology not accepted. How can it be a sincere apology?
““Nigel Farage: Coutts owner apologises for ‘inappropriate’ claims” – In a letter to the former UKIP leader, Dame Alison Rose insisted the assessment of Mr. Farage “does not reflect the views of the bank”, reports the Times.”
Again she is not apologising to me, but apology not accepted. Of course the assessment reflects the views of the bank – the bank bloody produced it, no doubt following their own policies. How can it be a sincere apology?
In both cases, they’ve been caught red-handed, underestimated who they were dealing with and the public reaction.
The Sopel apology includes a dig at the BBC for producing mis-information.
https://twitter.com/Nigel_Farage/status/1681970843675443200
Thanks – that is interesting. Perhaps his apology is sincere.
“Scientists think they’ve cracked the secret of Covid ‘super-dodgers’”
This article tries to indicate that this genetic immunity is rare by stating;
”Only about one in ten people within the general population are believed to have the genes offering them this form of protection. ”
But surely 1 in 10 = 10% ? which in the UK equates to 7 million people. If the article had in fact said ” 7 million people in the UK are believed to have this genetic immunity” it would have had a different ring to it but then that might be seen as playing down the significance of covid and TPTB’s over-reaction to it.
“people who got Covid never got ill…” Suggests that the Mail article is oxymoronic. How can one have a disease without being ill? However, if they were more accurate (I know it’s the Mail), they might have said that most of those that got Covid were not seriously ill. Wouldn’t sell very well, perhaps.
Yes. Covid is the disease, not the bug. A large bunch of people were exposed to the bug and never developed the disease; it happens all the time with other bugs.
One’s body can detox without any overt symptoms of detox & it is these products being excreted from cells that the PCR tests assess for the presence of. Very easy for a casedemic to be manufactured in this way.
Well, if microwave exposure causes the same set of symptoms labelled as covid in susceptible individuals prior to the bioweapon injection rollout, then it’s not going to be a transmissible disease.
If this is the case, then no virus exists so the lab leak theory is just a major diversion & no “vaccine” was ever going to be effective against microwave radiation.
There is a temporal association between every major influenza epidemic & an increase in the EMF exposure of the planet.
Beverly Rubik, whose work I have come across via MD4CE zoom meetings, gives an explanation in this Rumble video.
https://rumble.com/v30y8oi-adverse-health-effects-of-wireless-communication-radiation-by-berverly-rubi.html
The Comments section in the Daily Mail article about suggested genetic predisposition to immunity is encouraging.
I’ll take my chances with the risks from the disease rather than those of the jab!
That’s a sad indictment isn’t it?
I wouldn’t be surprised if Other Interests are frustrated that their JSO protestors had not yet achieved martyrdom due to an irate driver. Perhaps their view of human nature isn’t the same as that of the majority.
The JSO speaker in the video was correct on one key point though: “this government does not have our best interests at heart”.
In the above article we find
Er, no. Where’s the evidence of this?
Then we get:
OK so we’re not eviscerating kids yet (though we seem to be encouraging them to have their ‘bits’ mutilated (reminds me of FGM outrage)), but we are sacrificing their future well-being on the altar of Green alarmism.
“Just Stop Just Stop Oil” my response to these entitled dweebs. As a paid up member of the middle classes, they are a disgrace to said middle class!
ps. W no more choose our class than we do our parents…
Reminds me of the song:
I’ve danced with a man, who’s danced with a girl, who’s danced with the Prince of Wales.