Lee Anderson has launched a scathing attack on Labour over its refusal to launch a national inquiry into grooming gangs, saying it makes him “sick to his stomach.”
Speaking on GB News, the Reform MP accused Labour of denying justice to victims of abuse.
“We keep forgetting about these young girls who have been abused and tortured, the stuff they’ve been through is just sick,” Lee said.
“They need justice. The fact we have a Parliament denying them justice makes me sick to my stomach.”
Lee Anderson hit out at Jess Phillips
GB NEWS / PA
Labour’s safeguarding minister Jess Phillips said the government will not “intervene” in an Oldham inquiry, stating it is for the local council alone to decide.
A Labour spokesperson said the government “will welcome and support an independent investigation commissioned by Oldham Council which puts victims’ voices at its heart.”
Lee Anderson spoke to Christopher Hope on GB News
GB NEWS
The party pointed to its support for previous inquiries, including those in Telford and Rotherham, and the national overarching inquiry into child abuse which reported in 2022.
Conservative shadow ministers Chris Philp and Alicia Kearns have written to the Home Secretary demanding a “time-limited, national statutory Public Inquiry into grooming and rape gangs.”
Their letter calls for mandatory deportation of all foreign nationals convicted of grooming and rape offences.
The Conservatives are also demanding regular publication of data on the ethnicity of abusers and victims.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch wrote that a public inquiry is “long overdue,” stating “2025 must be the year that the victims start to get justice.”
Lee accused Labour of being “frightened to death of upsetting a certain demographic” that could cost them votes.
“I think anybody with an ounce of decency would back a national inquiry and mark my words, this goes deeper than what is being reported,” he said on GB News.
He added that some local authorities, police and councils “should hang their heads in shame” over their handling of cases.
“These people should be locked up straight away,” Anderson declared.
The national grooming scandal saw girls as young as 11 groomed and raped across multiple English towns, including Oldham, Rochdale, Rotherham and Telford.
A report by Professor Alexis Jay in 2014 revealed that between 1997 and 2013, approximately 1,400 girls were abused while police and social services failed to intervene.
In November last year, Professor Jay expressed frustration that none of the probe’s 20 recommendations had been implemented more than two years after its conclusion.
