Keir Starmer’s role in grooming gangs scandal should be investigated, says Farage

Sir Keir Starmer’s alleged role in failing to tackle grooming gangs who targeted thousands of young girls must be part of any public inquiry into the scandal, Nigel Farage has said.

The Reform leader said the decision by Labour not to hold a national public inquiry into the grooming, sexual assault and rape of young girls was a political disgrace.

Mr Farage said it was essential that the role of social services, police and local councils in covering up the scale of the problem in towns including Oldham, Telford and Rotherham was exposed.

He also said decisions taken by the Prime Minister when he was director of public prosecutions (DPP) between 2008 and 2013 over whether individuals accused of grooming and assaulting girls should face court had to be thoroughly examined.

‘Public don’t know the truth’

Speaking to The Telegraph before a speech to Reform UK’s East of England conference in Chelmsford on Saturday, he said: “I don’t think the great British public really knows the truth about the scale of it – at least 50 different towns in which this happened.

“We deserve a full public inquiry. Firstly, the public ought to know how ghastly this has been and how long it’s been going on for. Secondly, the cover-up by the police, social services, now it looks like the director of public prosecutions in 2008, which has quite big implications, and the Conservative government themselves – because of the sheer reluctance to debate this for fear of causing community tensions.”

Sir Keir’s Government has refused a national public inquiry into the scandal in which thousands of vulnerable girls were raped and sexually abused by gangs of mainly British Pakistani men.

Previous reports have been published into the failures of the police and local councils, saying officers and prosecutors had avoided taking action for fear of being called racist or Islamophobic.

But there have been growing calls for a statutory national investigation to examine wider failings, including by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) where Sir Keir was DPP between 2008 and 2013.

Mr Farage added: “I don’t know the truth about the 2008 allegations. Let’s find out what it was. But if he was part of it, if he was part of the cover-up, then we need to know.

“That there was an attempt to cover this up, that the details were drip-fed out rather than one big splash, is clear. His role should be part of that national public inquiry – he’s the Prime Minister and he was the DPP.”