Labour’s grooming gangs farce is leaving ordinary Brits with the impression this Government will do anything to avoid exposing the full truth about rapists who preyed on vulnerable young girls for decades. Instead of courage and accountability, we are seeing evasion, delay and deceit. The national inquiry that should have been a moment of justice for victims has descended into farce. And those responsible, including Home Office Minister Jess Phillips, seem more interested in managing public perception than confronting the rot within Britain’s institutions.

This is not mere incompetence. It’s something far more sinister. When a government drags its feet, blocks inquiries and smears those demanding answers, suspicion is not just warranted — it’s essential. From the very start, Labour’s approach to this issue has been shameful. When people first called for a full national inquiry, they were accused of jumping on a “far-right bandwagon.” When Elon Musk had the audacity to highlight the issue of grooming gangs, Jess Phillips attacked him rather than addressing the problem itself.

When Oldham councillors requested a Home Office-led inquiry into child abuse in the town, Jess Phillips refused. When that same council asked for a meeting with the Safeguarding Minister, she refused.

Then, when Parliament had the chance to vote for an inquiry, Labour resisted calls for a full national inquiry. It took months of pressure, public outrage, and survivor testimony before Labour finally caved and agreed to one. Yet even now, that inquiry is collapsing from within.

Three survivors — brave women who endured horrors most of us can barely imagine — have resigned from the inquiry’s liaison panel in disgust. They alleged a process dominated by manipulation, gaslighting, and the lurking fear findings would end up being a watered-down version of the ugly truth.

They say their voices are being silenced and their trauma exploited for political optics. One called it a “cover-up of a cover-up” — and it’s hard to disagree.

The Home Office insists everything is above board, but the facts tell another story. The inquiry’s remit is being quietly diluted.

Rather than focusing on the group-based, ethnically and religiously motivated abuse that defined these crimes, the scope seemed to be at risk of being widened — deliberately — to blur the picture.

The connection between the grooming gangs’ cultural background and the deliberate targeting of white, working-class girls is being airbrushed out.

And then there’s the matter of who runs the show. The leading candidates to chair the inquiry have been figures from the same institutions that failed these victims in the first place — senior police officers and social workers.

When survivors raised concerns about this, they were ignored. One candidate has now withdrawn, leaving only a Labour-aligned police officer in contention.

The Government should surely be sensitive at this point to anything that looks like an attempt to keep the truth safely contained.

Jess Phillips, meanwhile, has spent her time claiming ignorance — saying she doesn’t even know who’s on the victims’ panel — while publicly denying every concern raised.

If she had any decency, she’d resign. But decency appears to be in short supply. The truth is that these scandals have been allowed to fester for so long because too many in power feared the consequences of honesty.

Police officers, councillors, and civil servants looked the other way rather than risk being called racist. And now, even after the truth has been laid bare, Labour continues to treat this as a PR problem to be managed rather than a national disgrace to be confronted.

The victims of these grooming gangs deserve justice — not another whitewashed inquiry led by the very establishment that failed them. They deserve leaders with courage, not career politicians afraid of uncomfortable truths.

Labour’s handling of the grooming gang inquiry isn’t just a failure of administration — it’s a moral failure, a betrayal of the most vulnerable, and a stain on our nation’s conscience.

Shame on Jess Phillips, and shame on Labour!