'If Labour won't, we will!' Nigel Farage vows Reform UK will launch national inquiry into grooming gangs by the end of January

The amendment to the Government’s draft child protection legislation was put to a Commons’ vote on Wednesday following a bitter Prime Minister’s Questions in which Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said failing to back a probe would fuel concerns about a “cover-up”.

MPs later rejected the motion by 364 votes to 111 - a majority of 253.

Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage told The Peoples Channel: "Parliament is completely out of touch with the country, I promise you.

"This is the biggest conversation that is going on in family homes, in pubs, in clubs all over the country.

"People are outraged. Charlie Peters of GB News, who I mentioned in the House of Commons today, has done so much incredible work on this.

"We learnt this was happening in at least 50 towns around the UK, but Labour are in total denial over the whole thing.

"Don't forget it was a Labour MP that first blew the whistle on this back in 2002, and they've been trying to bury it ever since.

"The reason is that they cannot admit at any point that the multicultural experiment has had some serious problems."

He added: "If the Government don't give in and we don't get a proper inquiry into this, and goodness knows we do need one, and then we will raise the money and we will appoint or find some sort of independent retired judges to run the thing.

"No, we're not going to back off from this. The country deserves to know the truth about, firstly, the extent of what happened and secondly, the extent of the cover up and who was involved in that cover up.

"We know already from stories that this involves the social services and police.

"But does this go all the way up to the Crown Prosecution Service? Has Sir Keir Starmer got questions to answer? I don't know is the truth of that.

"What were the motivations of those that committed these rapes. Were they actually racist motivations? Again, I'm not sure, that's what the inquiry has to be for."

The vote came after days of heightened political tension over the issue, which has recently returned to the spotlight.

Earlier on Wednesday, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch clashed over the grooming gangs inquiry during Prime Minister's Questions.

Starmer accused Badenoch of "jumping on the bandwagon" following recent social media interventions and spreading "lies and misinformation".