‘What’s changed?’ Camilla Tominey tears into Darren Jones over grooming gangs U-turn after PM’s ‘far-right’ swipe

It comes after months of Labour officials insisting a national inquiry would stifle the process of ensuring justice for victims.

Starmer himself sparked outrage in January by branding such demands “far-right” after Elon Musk waded in on the topic with a series of posts on X.

During a visit to Surrey, the Prime Minister appeared to accuse the Tories of “jumping on a bandwagon” and “amplifying what the far-right is saying” on child sexual abuse after failing to act for “14 long years”.

Jones was asked by Camilla on GB News what has prompted the PM to change tack.

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“The inquiry that Baroness Casey has done for us, which will be reported to Parliament this week”, he said.

“We’ve always been very focused on the very heart of this. The victims of the most atrocious crimes deserve justice and those criminals need to be prosecuted.

“We received a number of recommendations from the last report by Alexis Jay and we were getting on and implementing those measures whilst asking Baroness Casey to review the situation with us, at the same time some local inquiries were being set up.

“The report will be published next week. The Prime Minister has seen it and decided we need a national inquiry to do further work which will be confirmed to Parliament tomorrow.”

Camilla did not let the minister off the hook as she probed further, arguing “literally anybody watching or listening to GB News” could have told the PM why such action was necessary.

She questioned why Starmer needed the assistance of Baroness Casey to make the decision.

Jones defended the PM, saying: “It’s a good challenge but you need to make sure you do these things properly.

“There’s lots of sensitive information and cases across the country. Remember Keir Starmer was Director of Prosecutions, working with Baroness Casey to bring the first prosecution on grooming gangs in Rochdale many years ago.

“That process has now concluded and the report has been written by Baroness Casey and on the basis of that, a national inquiry will follow.”

Despite brushing off calls for a national inquiry consistently for months, Starmer told reporters on his way to the G7 summit in Canada: “I’ve never said we should not look again at any issue.”

He said Baroness Casey even suggested a new inquiry was not necessary, but had changed her mind after looking into it in more detail.

“She’s come to the view there should be a national inquiry on the basis of what she’s seen”, he said.

“I’ve read every single word of her report, and I’m going to accept her recommendation.

“I think that’s the right thing to do, on the basis of what she has put in her audit.

“I asked her to do that job, to double-check on this. She’s done that job for me, and having read her report I shall now implement her recommendation.”

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper is expected to make a statement in the Commons on Monday with Baroness Casey’s report published alongside this.

The grooming gangs issue was thrust into the spotlight at the start of this year with Elon Musk controversially demanding jail time for Labour’s Jess Phillips.

He was responding to a post regarding GB News’s exclusive reveal about the Government formally rejecting repeated requests for a Home Office-led inquiry into historic child abuse on social media.

The Home Office had stressed the need to "learn from past mistakes and do everything possible to prevent future failures".

The row between Musk and Phillips centred on a multitude of cases about men, mainly of Pakistani descent, being convicted of sexually abusing and raping predominantly young white girls in towns such as Rotherham and Rochdale.

The Government opted against a statutory national inquiry into grooming gangs in January despite some Labour MPs voicing support for one.

Cooper felt a “rapid” three-month audit would suffice, with Baroness Casey looking into the data and evidence on the nature and scale of grooming gang abuse.