Former Labour MP Simon Danczuk has told GB News he was "warned off" by party figures from raising the issue of ethnicity in grooming gangs, due to concerns about "votes".
Speaking to host Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former Rochdale representative revealed that he was "told not to mention the ethnicity or the religion of the perpetrators" when raising concerns for rape gangs operating in his constituency.
Danczuk told GB News: "I was the MP from 2010 to 2017 in Rochdale. The Rochdale grooming scandal broke as a story in 2012, and I quickly came out saying that ethnicity and religion were a key factor in the abuse.
"The perpetrators had a very low opinion of the victims because they were Christian, because they were white, because they were working class, and they used that as an opportunity to to groom them and to rape them."
Simon Danczuk reveals he was 'warned' by Labour figures not to raise the issue of ethnicity with grooming gangs
GB News
Recalling how he was "warned" off by Labour figures, Danczuk explained: "I was warned off by a couple of significant members of the Labour Party. I was told not to mention the ethnicity or the religion of the perpetrators, but I ignored that and continued to do so.
"The most senior figure at the time was Tony Lloyd, who was chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party, and I wrote to the National Inquiry in 2017 saying that he'd warned me off it and he was concerned about votes."
Noting the "clear" reasoning for their warning to Danczuk, he added: "They thought it would upset the voting of Pakistani communities and they didn't want to lose the vote, it was quite clear about that.
"The good news now is because of what's gone on since 2010, 2012, is that everybody is quite clear, abusing children is totally unacceptable."
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Discussing one of the issues raised in the Baroness Casey report, Jacob Rees-Mogg suggested that any abuse carried out by "illegal asylum seekers and illegal immigrants" have much less sanction against them.
Rees-Mogg told Danczuk: "One of the things that's come out of the report is that some of the abuse is coming from people who are illegally asylum seekers and illegal immigrants.
"Who once they've broken one law, they've got much less sanction against them if they break other laws because they're already in a criminal world."
The former Labour MP agreed, stating that "cover-ups" by "people in authority" has "emboldened" abusers to carry out their crimes.
Danczuk told GB News that abusers who are in Britain illegally feel 'emboldened' to commit such crimes
GB News
Danczuk said: "That's right, and because a number of people in authority, the police and in social services have deliberately ignored or covered up the abuse by these particular perpetrators, I think they feel emboldened.
"They feel emboldened and continue to commit these types of crimes, there's no doubt about that."
Hailing the announcement of the national inquiry, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer told GB News: "I did ask Louise Casey to look at this for a reason, which is to assure me that there wasn't some further step that needed to be taken. I took that decision months ago.
"I've been raising this issue for 15 years. I'm really glad that I'm the Prime Minister that's actually now put in place a National Inquiry, something which wasn't done under the last government."
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