Labour suspends Trevor Phillips because he identified who made up child grooming gangs

As someone who grew up in a town where Asian grooming gangs operated, then moved to a city where it was also happening, I can tell you that everybody knew. The fact that it was allowed to continue unchallenged did more to damage community cohesion than anything else.

Just like a lot of LGB people deeply resent the gender stasi operating in their name, most Muslims I knew deeply resented those gangs of young men being allowed to define their community.

The Labour Party are making careers getting offended on other peoples’ behalf. People they know nothing about and whose oppinions they don’t give a fuck about. They only represent themselves, and that is why every day they’re hammering more nails into their political coffin.

Sensible grown ups, please stand up.

And surely everyone knows on the feminism board that some men will always see an opportunity to abuse girls and take it?

Of course. And ALL the different patterns of abuse need to be called out and addressed.

Saying 'oh white men do it too' is not a get out clause to not address Muslim Asian male groups.

I think even stupid Labour would not go after one of it's own rather than see the Tories come under "phobia" scrutiny for a change. The fact that Labour have in fact succeeded in giving the BBC a new shiny object to focus on has less to do with the Tories, and more to do with them wishing to deflect from the rampant anti-semitism in their ranks and going on a witch hunt against anyone who crossed their God, Corbyn.

@ewwsprouts And surely everyone knows on the feminism board that some men will always see an opportunity to abuse girls and take it?

Sarah Champion was ousted from her role on the front bench if I remember for what she said about the grooming gangs. The last Conference I attended appeared to have many Kashmiri Muslims wearing Free Palestine badges. These and students appear to be the voter base for Labour these days. Canvassers out in the last election had the door slammed in their faces by Jewish voters. These are the sad facts I'm afraid.

alloutoffucks OP you are wrong. I have read the full reports into cases like Rotherham. The main reason girls were put at risk was because professionals like the police thought they were just "slags" rather than victims.

But who actually perpetrated the child rapes and other assaults? Risk can exist but not become tragedy if people don't think here's my opportunity, take advantage & tell their associates to do the same.

Sorry, the right wing press has made labour send Phillips an 11 page letter detailing his Islamophobia?

Wow, they really do have a lot of power

Of course it was the men who abused the girls. We all know that some men will abuse and sexually exploit girls if they can get away with it. When the police are getting reports that is happening, as they did in Rotherham, it is their job to prosecute the men. They didn't. They failed in their legal responsibility.

And yes Labour are going to get damned over their obvious anti Semitism that those who support Corbyn keep denying. Rubbishing those involved in an enquiry investigating you, just before they publish a damning report, is a very old political tactic. An easy way of trying to deflect attention and saying that the report is biased and thus rubbish.
Of course that tactic won't really work except with those who already support Corbyn and disbelieve anyone that points out obvious Antisemitism in Labour. With those who recognise the Antisemitism, it will just make us more convinced that Labour is not fit for purpose.

I think it's more to do with the right wing press trying to divert attention away from this:
Just like the anti-Semitism cock-up was made up to make Corbyn look bad?

The Labour Party have booted out Trevor Phillips. Surely that is newsworthy? It's such a spectacular own goal.

I think it's more to do with the right wing press trying to divert attention away from this:

mcb.org.uk/press-releases/mcb-submits-new-dossier-of-conservative-islamophobia-to-ehrc-with-evidence-of-over-300-individuals/

OP is wrong to say it was one of the main factors

And yet, alloutoffucks, the IOPC upheld that complaint I referenced above.

Yes exactly talking to Lang

It's pointless to argue about whether it was the police or social services or the politicians who were most responsible other than the perpetrators. Every single institution that should have protected those girls failed. Each institution may have had different reasons, but there's plenty of blame to go around and none of them come out of it looking anything other than completely fucking useless.

Funny how some posters are keen to say Rotherham etc "was the police's fault". Did the police groom the girls?

I think some of the blame for the abuse that happened subsequent to Weir’s report in 2001 (and there were other well-known attempts to expose what was going on too, after hers) has to lie with the police and and the council, who made a deliberate choice to completely disregard these crimes, and the victims. I’m sure that misogyny and sheer contempt for these vulnerable girls played a big part in this choice but so did the fear of appearing racist, very much so.

Did they groom and abuse the girls themselves? No.

Did they abdicate their indisputable responsibility to protect these girls from a known and clearly evidenced threat of serious harm, and go after these dangerous criminals? Yes.

They could have stopped it years before. They didn’t. They were complicit in the abuse.

Well, anyone who's been watching telly or reading the papers since the trans pledge fiasco surely knows that Labour is fully on board now, so all that's left to do is get the information out to parents about what that means for the schools their children attend.

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/300239
Petition to release the grooming gang report, if it's ok to share here

The school reaction was mainly about kids being taught that being lesbian and gay is okay. There is a lot of homophobia in the Muslim community including Imams preaching that homosexuality is wrong.

JessicaLangoustine

Yes, I think self ID is an emerging issue in Muslim Communities, many think it's a conservative/tory thing rather than a Labour/cross party one and are more than likely not aware of Labour's stance. Labour are happy to let the tories carry the can so to speak.

If you look at how a section of the Muslim community reacted, in Birmingham to the school who were teaching about different families mainly LBGT themed, gives the flavour of why certain issues are downplayed and kept under the radar and why.

@TalkingtoLangClegintheDark I am not downplaying that this was principally Muslim Pakistani men in Rotherham abusing mainly girls, most but not all who were white.
But if you read the actual full report and not wiki it is clear that white Councillors ignored it because of fear of racism - some parents and concerned others brought the issue to Councillors attention. It is also clear that some Local Authority officials ignored it because of the race issue. But the people who had the legal power to prosecute ignored it because they thought the girls were consenting and had chosen this "lifestyle". You have to recognise they were victims first before you can prosecute,
So yes if others had not been afraid of racist accusations, they could have put real pressure on the police to prosecute. But even without that, the police could have prosecuted if they had recognised these girls as victims.

I think facts matter in cases. Phillips is right that fears of being called racist, inflating race tensions was a factor. OP is wrong to say it was one of the main factors

Anyone who tries to downplay or deny the race issue here (and in the other similar cases) is colluding with the very mindset that enabled these abusers to continue abusing those poor girls, terrorising them (and often their families too) for years after the abuse was first identified.

Yes. I fell out with a friend over this and so have seen the irrational rage talking about it can provoke, but the fact remains that if you refuse to talk about this you are making an active choice to sacrifice the girls who were abused, and the ones who will be abused in the future, in order to keep the peace. Which is a despicable thing to do.

And yes there is no way Labour will get in at the next election.

Institutional fear of appearing racist, particularly in the local authority, was absolutely one of the factors. There were several.

Absolutely, Clymene. And absolutely the police as well.

Look what happened to Adele Weir, who identified what was going on with the grooming gangs back in 2000/2001. She gathered and collated so much information but instead of investigating further, the police completely ignored and refused to share the evidence she’d compiled, her office was broken into and documents deleted from her computer, records were falsified to make it look as if she’d agreed to be gagged when she hadn’t, and she was booked onto a two day “ethnicity and diversity awareness” course.

[From Wiki] A five-year investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) found that the Rotherham police ignored the sexual abuse of children for decades for fear of increasing "racial tensions". The IOPC upheld a complaint that a father of one of the victims was told by a police officer the town "would erupt" if it became known that Asian men were regularly sexually abusing underage white girls.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_exploitation_scandal

(And yes, I know it’s Wiki, but this is a matter of public record. I’ve seen Adele Weir interviewed and heard her recount these events in her own words.)

Anyone who tries to downplay or deny the race issue here (and in the other similar cases) is colluding with the very mindset that enabled these abusers to continue abusing those poor girls, terrorising them (and often their families too) for years after the abuse was first identified.

Hundreds and hundreds more girls suffered because the police and the council deliberately refused not just to join up the dots - that had been done for them - but to act on the compelling, hard evidence that was presented to them, because of the race aspect.

Another version of the sacred caste approach.

The Monster Raving Woke Party.

The police clearly in documents showed that they thought girls were choosing to have sex with multiple older men, and them receiving money for this was described officially as a lifestyle choice. They were not seen as victims.
Councillors refused to tackle it because of a fear of racism, but with the police it was pure misogyny.

I think one of the reasons Philips is so loved is because he is always so measured in his opinions. He has always come across as extremely intelligent.

And yes this is trying to set seeds to rubbish the anti semitism investigation. They know it will be damning.

I can't understand what is going on in Labour. They are in a complete mess.

We're going to be stuck with the Tories for a long time now and the country will be ruined.

I can't even see a time in the near future where I would be happy voting for Labour and if you had told me a few years ago that would be the case I wouldn't have believed you.