An ex-Tory MP has launched a scathing attack on "radical" left-wing figures for criticising Labour MP Mike Tapp, as the grooming gangs inquiry chaos continues to escalate.
Speaking to GB News, Alexander Stafford said it was "absolutely disgraceful" of senior figures, including Zack Polanski and Zarah Sultana, for accusing Mr Tapp of "fascist" remarks about the inquiry's investigation.
Migration Minister Mike Tapp was slammed by far-left figures for stating the grooming gangs inquiry will examine the Pakistani-Muslim nature of the perpetrators.
Discussing the inquiry, Mr Tapp told GB News: "It's very important that what we won't do is turn away from this, it's about ensuring that if there is a link between ethnicity, between race, between culture, that we identify that so that we can deal with it... We need to get to the bottom of it, and I'm confident we will."
Leader of the Green Party Zac Polanski accused the MP of "parroting Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson", and co-founder of your party, Zarah Sultana, branded him a "Temu Enoch Powell" and using "rhetoric is straight out of the old fascist playbook".
Reacting to the attacks, Mr Stafford told GB News host Patrick Christys: "Well, I don't really understand what they're going on about in the sense that we had the Jay report in 2014 looking at Rotherham, and it said there's a clear link that overrepresentation groups or people from certain minority groups abusing white girls.
"The Casey report this year was about three different police forces, including in Manchester and South Yorkshire, and once again the conclusions were exactly the same.
"So they're basically denying the facts they're out there and facts that have been independently verified by several different, highly qualified, highly independent people investigating it."
Alexander Stafford has hit out at the 'radical left' for accusing Mike Tapp of having a 'fascist' stance on the grooming gangs inquiry
|GB NEWS / PA
Accusing the left-wing figures of trying to "minimise the impact" of the grooming gangs, Mr Stafford said: "They're trying to minimise some of the impact and diminish the impact that has been had on the victims.
"I think worse still is that by diminishing and moving eyes away from the root cause, often this problem, you're actually going to make it more likely for issues like this to happen again and again in the future."
He fumed: "I think it's absolutely disgraceful and bizarre. They're ignoring the facts which are being presented to them in an independent manner."
Admitting that "successive Governments" have historically "turned a blind eye" to the grooming gangs, the ex-Tory MP explained: "We know what has happened over the last 15, 20, 30 years, we've turned a blind eye to this.
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Zarah Sultana and Zack Polanski have attacked Mr Tapp for saying the inquiry will investigate a link 'between ethnicity, race and culture'
|PA
"Unfortunately, for so long, the police, the authorities, the council, the Governments have turned blind eyes. All the parties have been really doing this, whether it's at local level, at national level and the progress has been relatively glacial."
He added: "But at last the Labour Party is starting to recognise that there is this link, there is this background and are starting, albeit very slowly still, to look into this."
Criticising Mrs Sultana further, he stated: "So when you have former Labour MPs like Zarah Sultana, who literally was elected on the Labour Party ticket, basically denying this publicly, what else is going on in the ranks of some of the left wing Labour MPs or councillors who are also part of the Labour Party?
"And clearly this shows to me that the attitude amongst certain members of the Labour Party and the left is still not where it needs to be, and it should be to protect our young women and girls."
Mr Stafford told GB News that they are 'publicly denying the evidence' that there is a link
|GB NEWS
Highlighting Mr Tapp's remarks, which only suggested there "could be a link" in culture, race and ethnicity, Mr Stafford concluded: "There's one important part of Mike Tapp's comment, and that is he said 'if there is a link'. So he's not even saying there's a 100 per cent link.
"And yet the radical left are jumping on it, they're not even willing to contemplate that there might be a link, even though the evidence is there.
"They're saying regardless, there's no link. Let's look at the inquiry, let's get the evidence again rather than just throw it out the window, and that's how our girls are abused again and again and again."
Patrick agreed, stating: "Well, I think they're terrified of their worldview crashing down around them."
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