Labour’s pivot on grooming gangs may not be enough to silence critics
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Yvette Cooper’s unveiling of a rapid review of evidence, after week of arguments against new inquiry, has already been called inadequate. When is a U-turn not a U-turn? When it is less a complete volte face and more of a change of direction. The question looms over Keir Starmer, whose announcement of a review into grooming gangs is his second such positional pivot this week alone.
On Tuesday, the Treasury minister, Tulip Siddiq, departed over her links to much-disputed claims of family corruption centred on her aunt, the former president of Bangladesh. Downing Street had insisted for days that the facts must first be established.
And in a similar way, after more than a week of government arguments that a second national inquiry into grooming gangs would simply waste time and delay meaningful action, a national “audit” of the problem has been unveiled – albeit one that will last three months rather than some years.
It’s common for governments to deflect the reality of a situation before the political pressure becomes overwhelming and a change of tack becomes inevitable. The quirk of Starmer’s approach is for this to happen as part of an insistence on proper procedure.
Thus, as Siddiq’s demise was delayed pending an inquiry by Starmer’s ethics adviser, the concessions on grooming gangs have come as part of a carefully curated series of measures, with luminaries including Louise Casey wheeled out to helm them. Some at the centre of Starmer’s government had argued that, such is the public worry about grooming gangs and possible cover-ups connected to them, a full national inquiry was inevitable.
