It’s come to something when we’ve got to crowdfund to get justice for the victims of the Pakistani rape gangs. That’s exactly what Maggie Oliver, the former Manchester police officer, is doing with her #TheyKnew campaign.
Welcome to Sir Keir Starmer’s two-tier British justice system.
It was in 2012 that I first met Maggie. I was the Labour MP for Rochdale, and she came to tell me all that she knew about the abuse and failure by senior police officers to act against the perpetrators.
I’d been in place just two years when the ‘Rochdale Grooming Scandal hit the headlines. I wasted no time in publicly saying that both race and religion were key factors in these attacks on white working-class girls.
It didn’t take long before I was told to shut up about the ethnicity and backgrounds of the rapists. One local Labour Pakistani member wrote to the newspaper stating I should remember his community had got me elected. Another Muslim stopped me in the town centre and told me not to try and get the rapists deported, I ignored both.
It wasn’t long before some local Labour councillors complained that I was going on too much about the problem.
Then a neighbouring Labour MP, Jim Dobbin, sidled up to me at some local function and said there was no advantage to mentioning the rapists were Pakistani, it would cost us votes. Days later I was in the House of Commons and Tony Lloyd MP. Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party, stopped me in a corridor, just outside the chamber, and said he didn’t believe race or religion was relevant to the girls being raped. Besides, that community was a big voting bloc for Labour. He repeated his view in a parliamentary debate soon after.
It's worth remembering that Tony was at the time giving up his parliamentary seat and running for Greater Manchester Police Commissioner, where he’d rely heavily on the Muslim community to get elected. Once Tony became Police Commissioner, he was a staunch defender of Peter Fahy, the Greater Manchester Police Chief Constable.
In light of the scandal, he came to Rochdale and said at a public meeting: “I’m here to celebrate multiculturalism.” I couldn’t believe my ears, encouraging multiculturalism had helped facilitate the abuse.
Let this sink in: Millions are being spent on grooming gang rapists while victims cry out - Simon DanczukGetty Images
When I wrote in the Mail on Sunday that Fahy should be sacked for his appalling approach to policing, Lloyd was furious with me – I had no regrets and wouldn’t be silenced.
Then the failings in Rotherham came to light, and Professor Jay investigated, noting the role of local Labour politicians had played. At the time I said: “What we’ve seen is council officials deciding that they are more concerned about diversity and cultural expression than about the rape of children.” Ignoring pressure from Labour MPs, I publicly called for the Labour South Yorkshire Police Commissioner, Shaun Wright, to resign – he went a few days later.
With pressure from people like Maggie Oliver we’ve now seen an increase in the number of rapists prosecuted and that’s to be welcomed.
However, what we haven’t seen is prosecution of those that enabled the rapes by deliberately ignoring the abuse, instructing people to turn a blind eye, or even encouraging prosecution of the victims for minor offences.
The victims and the public want to see those who effectively facilitated the abuse prosecuted. That’s why we need a national Pakistani rape gang inquiry which has the powers to call witnesses and build evidence against the officials who failed the girls.
My experience has led me to conclude that Starmer and his Labour government won't deliver a grooming gang inquiry with real substance because of votes.
Such an inquiry will highlight the failings and role Labour politicians played in the rape gang scandal, and it will alienate Labour amongst the Muslim vote on which they heavily rely. We saw at the General Election Labour lose seats to independent Muslim candidates, in Blackburn, Leicester and elsewhere. Jess Phillips MP – the Home Office Minister blocking a national inquiry – lost 27 per cent of her vote in her heavily Muslim seat of Birmingham Yardley, and scraped in with a 693 majority, from over 73,000 voters.
In 2014, the Political Studies Association named me ‘Campaigner of the Year’ for the work I did for the victims of child abuse. In 2015, I received the prestigious Contrarian Award for similar reasons. I’m proud of the work I did and believe I called it right, though perhaps I could have done even more.
In 2024 Maggie Oliver won the Contrarian Award for her work on behalf of the rape gang victims, I was so pleased to see her receive it.
Well over a decade now, and those who enabled the biggest criminal justice scandal in our history have not been held to account.
Maggie is having to crowdfund to get justice whilst millions are being-spent on legal aid and lawyers for the rapists – let that sink in. Starmer and his Labour colleagues are happy to fund the perpetrators, but the victims can whistle.
Starmer’s Britain now has a two-tier justice system, and it’s all because of multiculturalism and votes.
