1 week Ago By Chloe Govan
Express columnist Carole Malone accused Labour MP Jess Phillips of "trying to play down" the involvement of "Pakistani Muslim gangs" in the sexual exploitation of young white girls, after a spate of abuse cases emerged in the national media. Feeling that Labour hadn't done enough to support survivors, she accused the party of "putting Muslim votes above the needs of the rape and torture of white working class girls". Clearly incensed and demanding a full national enquiry, she raged on GB News : "How can a silly victim panel get to the bottom of this?" She then quizzed of correspondent Jonathan Lis, who also sat on the GB News panel: "Are you disputing the fact that Labour are doing this to keep the Muslim vote and not to offend Muslims?" Jonathan responded: "Yes, I am", to which Carole responded: "You seem to be doing what your party's doing and brushing this under the carpet!" Jonathan claimed that "a lot of the victims didn't actually want a national enquiry" and argued that there "seems to be a fixation on one aspect of childhood abuse" - that of Pakistanis forming gangs.
"There shouldn't be political correctness in this," he argued. Carole vociferously disagreed with his comments, going on to suggest that Jess Phillips had betrayed girls and women by failing to take tougher action to protect them. The debate comes as a new map from GB News pinpointed five areas of Britain it said had never received any formal enquiry into grooming gangs - in spite of "a plethora of related prosecutions".
The locations are Bradford, Huddersfield, Oxford/Banbury, Newcastle and London, where some girls reported their lives had been made a "living nightmare". They stated that gangs had raped them, commercially exploited them by passing them round for sex and even got them hooked on drugs to make them compliant. However, Labour defeated a vote calling for a nationwide enquiry in the House of Commons back in January, suggesting the issue had been sufficiently addressed.
More recently, the party appeared to scale back the local enquiries into gangs which had originally been promised, provoking one rape gang survivor to brand it a "profound betrayal" which had "retraumatised" those affected. Meanwhile, Labour suggested that the term "grooming gang" could be seen as racist..
