Labour MP breaks ranks with Starmer to call for grooming gangs inquiry
12 January 2025 12:01pm GMT
Dan Carden has become the first Labour MP to break ranks and demand a national inquiry into grooming gangs.
The MP for Liverpool Walton, said that the “public call for justice must be heeded” and that Sir Keir Starmer should “use the full power of the state to deliver justice”.
It comes as new polling showed that more than four in ten people believed that the grooming gangs scandal was deliberately covered up.
The Prime Minister ordered Labour MPs to vote to block a statutory inquiry into the grooming gangs scandal, which was backed by Kemi Badenoch and Elon Musk, the tech billionaire.
Musk and Cummings
It comes after the Mail on Sunday reports that Mr Musk, the owner of X, has been in communication with Dominic Cummings who is helping to coordinate his attacks on Labour.
The former No 10 adviser to Boris Johnson has reportedly been in contact with Mr Musk, with an ally of the tech billionaire telling the newspaper that the pair “are talking about small government and the end of the traditional party system”.
The Mail on Sunday also reported that senior government sources believed that Mr Cummings encouraged the tech billionaire to post incendiary comments on social media calling for Sir Keir to be removed from office.
Sir Keir did not take part in the vote and his spokesman said he would be “guided by the victims” on the issue, but Downing Street denied that this meant Sir Keir was wavering in his belief that a new inquiry was unnecessary.
But Mr Carden told the Liverpool Echo: “The public compassion for the victims, thousands of young British working-class girls and children is real. The public call for justice must be heeded.