‘Tribal instinct’ is making groups ‘protect their own’ in grooming gangs, Kemi Badenoch claims

Issuing another intervention on the grooming gangs scandal as pressure continues to mount on the government, Badenoch specified that in her view the use of the term “Pakistanis” to describe the overrepresentation of offenders was unhelpful.

Instead, she said that direct reference to Mirpur, a district within the Kashmir region of Pakistan, was more appropriate.

In January, the Conservative sparked controversy after telling GB News that grooming gang perpetrators were “peasants” from “rural backgrounds.”

She has now clarified her stance, again telling the people’s channel that “the point I was making there was just calling it ‘Pakistani grooming gangs’ actually obscured what was really going on.”

Referring to Mirpur, she added: “This is not about just men or Asians. It’s about people from specific communities that have very little cultural connection with the UK.”

When asked about a group of MPs, including both Labour and independent politicians, campaigning for an airport in Mirpur, Badenoch said it was evidence that they were in the “wrong job.

She said: “What worries me is that I see a lot of Labour MPs, not just the ones of Pakistani origin, or with high Pakistani communities or Asian communities, but loads of Labour MPs who will not talk about the problems that are happening here today in Bradford or in Birmingham or wherever.

“But they're talking about what's happening in Gaza … as if that is the very priority of the people who voted them in. It’s not. They are in the wrong job.”

Badenoch then turned her ire onto Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips, saying “I don't think Jess Phillips understands what her job is.”

Pressed if some MPs were nervous about engaging with the grooming gang issue because it could threaten votes from certain communities, Badenoch said it was for Labour MPs like Phillips to explain their stance.

On the minister, she continued: “This is someone who claimed to be a campaigner for women's rights. But when the time came [the vote for a national inquiry in January], what she showed was a lack of bravery. She looks to me like someone who is scared. It’s up to her to explain what her motivations are.

“But whenever I see her at the dispatch box, I see someone who is in over her head, who doesn't know how to solve the problem and is actually terrified of doing anything about it.”

The Tory leader’s comments come as Westminster awaits the return of Louise Casey’s “rapid audit” of child sexual exploitation, which was commissioned in January and expected in April.

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Government sources suggested that it would be published in June, with some Labour MPs saying that they would back a national inquiry into the abuse gangs scandal if that is what Baroness Casey recommends.

In January, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced five local inquiries, but in April the government was accused of “watering down” these proposals by updating it to “locally-led work” after receiving “feedback” from local authorities.

Home Office sources later insisted that there could be even more than five local reviews, but so far only Oldham, which had a request for a national probe rejected, has been confirmed.

Badenoch also suggested that some form of government inquiry could consider the links between cousin marriage and grooming gangs, with researchers suggesting that first-cousin links can limit the instinct to refer relations to the criminal justice system.

But she warned that she did not want a lengthy national inquiry that was bogged down by academic questions.

Dr Patrick Nash, from the Pharos Foundation, told GB News that cousin marriage would likely have an impact on the ability to deal with grooming gangs as groups seek to actively suppress the issue to preserve family honour.

“Cousin marriage sustains close-kin networks which incentivise clan members both to dehumanise out-group victims and suppress knowledge of criminal activity to preserve family honour,” he said.

Badenoch gave an interview to GB News after meeting Fiona Goddard, one of the few women in Bradford to have achieved successful convictions for gang abuse.

After meeting with the Tory leader, Goddard said: “I've had my doubts all the time whether people are using things just for political gain and to gain traction. I do actually believe that she is quite genuine.

“I think her meeting the victims and hearing their stories has had a big impact on how she sees this. I do think she is genuine about that, and I do think that she is doing it for the right reasons. Well, I'm hoping she is anyway.”

Goddard has called for Bradford to host a local inquiry and has also called for a national-level investigation, to include trafficking networks and organised crime groups involved in this form of exploitation.

The survivor added that she would like to urge politicians “to start seeing us as actual people instead of a political decision.”

She continued: “It shouldn’t be based on what politics you believe in, or what part you belong to. It should be based on what's right.

“And the fact is, I'm one of thousands. There are so many more like me … I've managed to rebuild my life [but] the majority of these victims haven’t.”

A Labour spokesperson said: “Jess Phillips has spent her entire career supporting the victims of sexual abuse, and in the 10 months she has been in the Home Office, she has already taken more action and introduced more legislation to tackle the perpetrators of that abuse than Kemi Badenoch achieved in her entire time as a minister.

“And she was not short of opportunities. Badenoch spent seven months as Minister for Children, 10 months as Minister for Local Government, and 20 months as Minister for Women.

“But not once in that entire time did Kemi Badenoch say a word in Parliament about grooming gangs or the sexual abuse of children.

"Not once did she meet a victim of child abuse, or a police officer investigating grooming gangs, or any other expert in the field.

“To say that Kemi Badenoch did nothing about this issue is an understatement. She did not even recognise that there was an issue.

"When the victims of grooming gangs needed a voice within government, they got only silence and apathy from her.”