Ipso owes Suella Braverman an apology

Spectator

9 hours ago

When Suella Braverman wrote in April 2023 that 'the perpetrators [of group-based child sexual exploitation] are groups of men, almost all British-Pakistani,' the then-Home Secretary was roundly condemned. 'Hacked Off', a lobby group which seeks to tighten regulation of the press, said her article in the Mail on Sunday was part of a 'toxic libel'. Guardian columnist Owen Jones went on to describe her 'claims' as 'designed to foment racist division and hate'. Lewis Goodall of LBC confronted her live on air, saying that she was chastised 'entirely rightly' for her 'false claim'.
One entity went further than words. The Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM), an offshoot of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), filed a formal complaint with the press regulator, Ipso, on the grounds that there it was inaccurate and misleading to say that Pakistani men are overrepresented in grooming gang activity. Ipso took their side, and instructed the Mail on Sunday to print a correction, whilst stating that no breach of the Editor's Code has technically taken place.
It's worth understanding just how controversial the Muslim Council of Britain, to which CfMM is connected, really is. In 2009, the British government under Gordon Brown suspended all engagement with the MCB after its Deputy Secretary-General, Dr. Daud Abdullah, signed the 'Istanbul Declaration' – a document interpreted as endorsing violence against Israel and even attacks on foreign (including British) troops aiding Israel. This informal boycott has been continued by successive governments.
Almost two years after the ruling, the accuracy in Braverman's 'claim' has been proven beyond doubt. Baroness Louise Casey's independent audit, which was published earlier this year, has confirmed what victims, social workers and Braverman herself always knew: that in towns like Rotherham, Rochdale and Telford, the pattern of abuse was committed overwhelmingly by British-Pakistanis. This truth was suppressed, denied and tolerated for years because officials were too afraid to say so out loud. The same 2020 Home Office report that CfMM clung to in its complaint is dismissed by Casey as methodologically flawed. Paragraph 16 of Ipso's ruling stated that linking Pakistani ethnicity to a specific form of abuse was inaccurate. Casey has now proved unequivocally that such a link exists.
Last week, Braverman wrote to Ipso to demand a retraction of that ruling. She is right to do so, and the rest of us should support her. What Ipso did in 2023 was not just a procedural error – it was an act of moral cowardice. The ruling suggests that it accepted the word of a partisan campaign group over that of the serving Home Secretary. Her letter to Ipso Chairman Lord Faulks says it all in a phrase: 'The truth cannot be racist.'
Beyond this demanded apology, there is a deeper question to ask about press regulation, and the pressure that individual groups can apply to shape the national debate.
CfMM's founder, Miqdaad Versi, earned a name by lodging dozens of complaints with newspapers, demanding corrections for articles that linked parts of Islam to violence or radicalism. He once argued that all negative reporting on Islam should carry a compulsory right of reply – from him. News editors have admitted privately to giving in 'for the sake of a quiet life'. Ipso, to its disgrace, gave in officially.
Under Versi's watch, CfMM has waged a relentless campaign against reporting on grooming gangs. CfMM has tried to portray the topic as a racist obsession – a 'trope.' But the Casey audit confirms that what they dismissed as a trope was, in fact, a pattern of abuse too politically sensitive to tackle. That CfMM's complaint was upheld by Ipso on this matter is beyond shameful, it is disgusting.
Amanda Morris, CfMM's 'community liaison officer', also works for Stop Funding Hate – the same group that tries to defund GB News and the Sun. Morris has been accused of sharing antisemitic content online. She denies doing so and says she is 'an opponent of all forms of racism including anti-Jewish racism'.
One of CfMM's analysts, Faisal Hanif, had to apologise for promoting material by Gilad Atzmon – a man who reportedly told students that 'the Jews were expelled from Germany for misbehaving.' Hanif said that sharing the post was an error 'both professionally and personally (having) fail(ed) to check Mr Atzmon's wider views.' Does Ipso think these people should be the ones to decide the contours of public debate?
Braverman's crime was to describe a reality that tens of thousands of families already knew. For that, she was disciplined, humiliated, and cast as a bigot. The truth is that she didn't mislead the public ­– she told them what the Home Office, Ipso and the vast majority of the commentariat lacked the courage to admit.
Braverman's demand for Ipso to retract its ruling is about more than setting a historical record straight – this is a battle over whether or not the press in this country have the right to report on both grooming gangs and the ethnic dimensions of crime accurately, regardless of taboo.
If we still believe in truth, in courage, and in justice for the victims of these crimes, then this moment requires something more: we must say, without hesitation, that Suella Braverman was right – and that Ipso was wrong. And we must not stop saying it until they admit it too.