Kemi Badenoch defends the Tories' record on grooming gangs
Kemi Badenoch said that 'survivors and their families' have been 'ignored for far too long' as she appeared alongside those affected by the grooming gangs' scandal. 'What this morning is about is not the politics, but giving…(victims) a platform to say what they want to see from a national inquiry,' the Tory leader said at a press conference in Westminster.
The Tory leader was on less safe turf when she claimed, slightly implausibly, that she wanted to 'take the politics out of' the issue
Marlon West, the father of grooming gangs' victim Scarlett, asked about local-led inquiries and whether 'local authorities are going to be answering their own homework.' Fiona Goddard, a survivor who waived her anonymity, urged law enforcement to continue. 'Work cannot stop on tackling crime in the here and now,' she said.
Then there was Teresa, whose son was abused by grooming gangs. She raised the question of help for the survivors. 'We're just left with nothing', she said. 'We're here to pick up the pieces.' Finally, there was Lucia, a campaigner for survivors. She raised the case of a Manchester charity, who took a survivor to the police, who told her she 'won't get a court hearing until 2028.'
Each of the four offered a damning indictment of state failure in Britain. But the question for Badenoch and shadow home secretary Chris Philp, who appeared alongside the victims, is: how are you going to fix it?
Philp offered his own criteria for the inquiry, which, he said, must cover all 50 towns and cities affected. Each of the local inquiries must have statutory powers to compel the production of evidence, he insisted. Philp also said that the probes should be completed within two years and that each one should be 'genuinely independent'.
Inevitably, the Q&A focussed on the record of the last Conservative government. Did they do enough to ask the hard questions of state institutions?
'We did a lot and the more we did the more we realised that even more needed to be done', replied Badenoch. 'Apologies are easy, what we need to see is action', she added. 'We can sit here and say sorry all day long but what I actually want to see is an inquiry that actually gets to the bottom of this.'
Her remarks were echoed by the survivors' families on the panel, who stressed the need for deeds, not words.
The Tory leader was on less safe turf when she claimed, slightly implausibly, that she wanted to 'take the politics out of' the issue – 24 hours after attacking Home Secretary Yvette Cooper vociferously in the Commons. But she could at least point to the Prime Minister's initial ham-fisted response to calls for an inquiry back in January.
'Who was it who said this was 'dog-whistle politics?' It was Keir Starmer and his ministers', she said.
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