School governors told to ‘dismiss’ grooming gangs concerns

A lot of the reason why it’s flourishing is the insistence that people can’t freely discuss it, to a greater or lesser extent. It would be uncharitable to say it was due to people like you, so I’ll refrain from blaming anyone.

I’m interested if you would act the same if the races were reversed?

Could you please elaborate why you think the training was “inappropriate” if you don’t think it was pushing the narrative that concerns about grooming gangs are “disinformation”?

Well, yes, to some extent, you're right. Perhaps I do want to control the way the issue is talked about, not because I want to divert attention away from the issue or avoid dealing with the facts, but because I'm sick of the racist rhetoric about this.

And yes, of course we need to talk about issues like this, and sweeping them under the carpet in order to avoid talking about it has obviously had horrific consequences. But we don't have to go to the other extreme in which all Muslim men (and other men who look like they might be Muslim) are demonised. And yes, this is what is happening, sadly.

Agree.

No it doesn't.

I'm just getting the impression of a similar kind of malaise nowadays in various different circumstances. A sort of "omnicauseitis", where if you suggest dealing with a specific problem, straight away it's " but what about
this, what about that?" The same way that certain kinds of "feminism" now seems to mean campaigning for every minority group, not just women, so the focus is lost.
It's like somebody who never cleans their house because if they started by cleaning, say, the kitchen, it would be "pretending the rest of the house isn't dirty".

I've already said that I think the training was inappropriate. The potential for misinterpretation/misrepresentation clearly wasn't thought through, and I understand that it has now been taken down. However, it simply isn't factually correct to say that governors were being trained that they "should take any rumours of groups of men from a specific religion committing acts of violence against girls as false/disinformation". That might be the message that the Telegraph wanted its readers to take away, but it patently isn't the truth.

Yes, I agree. I think this thread is being derailed by agenda pushing from several posters.

As far as I know there are already non grooming gang victims on the panel. So not just a question, otherwise why are they there?

The work with grooming gang victims has been outsourced to a charity, and they seem to have decided that some non grooming gang victims of abuse can be included. That is broadening the scope and is likely going to water down the investigation. Jess Philips is customarily evasive, and as you say she has a conflict of interest. I think she should resign from it or be replaced.

Apologies for BBC source which I don’t consider particularly reliable

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c201x4d7z5no

Can you provide me with some specific info about how it is being watered down. I'm aware that there was a question about whether the scope should be broadened, but as far as I understood, this was just a question included in the consultation rather than a decision that had been made. Am I right in thinking that the terms of reference haven't been finalised yet?

I do think we should be able to debate issues freely. I agree with you about first cousin marriage and personally I would make it illegal. Forced marriage is already illegal.

But there is also a huge amount of hate and violence aimed at innocent Muslims. And indeed, often aimed at non-Muslims who happen to be brown because people can't always tell the difference. Do you not think that they need to be protected?

There is a vast difference between having a reasonable debate about specific issues and showing outright hostility/aggression towards people who are (or are assumed to be) from a particular faith group. Perhaps having a legal definition would help to distinguish between the two?

And yet the enquiry, which was supposed to have a narrow focus on these specific injustices, seems to be being mysteriously watered down, as any examination of the wider picture relating to these gangs has in the past. How is that happening, you may ask? Well, pretending that we don’t understand what the “grooming gangs” refers to, for one.

I didn't make anything up. There are absolutely far right voices trying to push the narrative that this kind of abuse is predominantly perpetrated by Muslim men. If you haven't come across that narrative, then I'm glad to hear it. Sadly, I've come across quite a lot of it.

That doesn't mean that I think anyone who is disturbed by what happened in Rotherham and want the truth/justice/accountability etc are racist for feeling that way. Of course they aren't, and I share their feelings completely. But there are some racists who are more than happy to exploit the trauma that these poor women experienced to promote their own agenda.

I don't think we are really disagreeing - I would like to see justice for the grooming gang victims as much as anyone. I want to see justice for all women who have been sexually abused and exploited, regardless of the perpetrators.

Re JP - yes, there may be a conflict of interests, and as I say, she should step away if her involvement is going to get in the way of the inquiry. It had been my understanding that no steps had actually been taken to broaden the scope of the inquiry, and that this was merely a question included in the consultation with survivors as different views had been expressed. It was also my understanding that the women who were supporting Philips were survivors of the grooming gang abuse. However, there is so much conflicting information out there about this that it is hard to know what to believe, and I may well have got this wrong.

And personally, I don't think it's unreasonable to question the motives of those who only want to talk about offences committed by Pakistani men to the exclusion of anything else.

I’m not sure why you are stuck on this point. There is no other group who have such vocal and aggressive defenders at all levels of society. Keir Starmer is in talks with the Muslim Council of Britain to expand the definition of Islamophobia. The current definition on the Labour Party website includes a ‘targeting expressions of Muslimness’. Islamophobia is proposed to be a hate crime. This will have a chilling effect on the criticism and calling out and potentially even prosecuting many expressions of Muslimness including first cousin marriage (which produces a high rate of serious congenital abnormalities/death) or forced marriage etc.

Obviously we need to address all types of sexual abuse but while one particular group still has levels of institutional support that even Andrew Windsor struggled to achieve, we need to focus on getting to the bottom of why.

That's a fair question. By "we", I mean society as a whole. I absolutely think that we - as a society - need to get to the truth about the grooming gangs and we need to tackle any uncomfortable issues that might arise from the inquiry. But I would like us - as a society - to situate our discussions about the specific issues that happened in Rotherham (and many other towns) within the wider context of discussions about the abuse and exploitation of vulnerable women and girls in general.

I would like to see justice and accountability for all of those involved in the grooming gangs, and that includes those who were complicit in allowing the abuse to continue as well as the perpetrators themselves. But I would equally like to see justice and accountability for others who have been involved in sexual exploitation and those who have helped to cover it up in other contexts. For example, I would like to know exactly who knew what and when in relation to the Andrew Mountbatten Windsor issues. The Church. Children's homes. And so on. Of course we need to look at the details of each of these issues in isolation in order to understand their particular characteristics. But I think there are commonalities that also need to be explored. I will be honest in saying that I don't really know what the best way of exploring those commonalities might be, but I don't think that people trying to shut the conversation down by saying "shame on you" or accusing them of trying to protect rapists isn't going to move the conversation forward. And personally, I don't think it's unreasonable to question the motives of those who only want to talk about offences committed by Pakistani men to the exclusion of anything else.

My issue with your comment was that you made up something that isn’t true to argue against. I just pointed out your claim was incorrect.

You said:
pretending that this kind of abuse is perpetrated predominantly by one section of the community

I said:
Except that nobody is doing that. All we are asking for is the Pakistani Muslim rape gangs and their enablers at all levels (including government) to be subject to the same rule of law as everyone else.

And then you asked who was arguing against that, which again, I answered.

I haven't seen any evidence that JP is trying to water down the inquiry. I'm aware that some of the victims want her to resign, but I understand that there are others who also want her to stay

I’m sure there’s a thread on this. In summary Jess apparently invited some survivors of other types of sex abuse to join the panel (and lied in Parliament) which the original women were seriously concerned would significantly take the focus away from the very specific issue of the Pakistani Muslim grooming gangs. Afaik the women that support her are the survivors of other abuse and not the grooming gang survivors. I understand the wish of the other sex abuse survivor’s to want their issues investigated but the end result is predicted to be an unwieldy and vast inquiry that will take even more years and not properly address a very specific problem.

Jess has a 45% Muslim constituency and the Muslim Council of Britain has expressed a degree of tetchiness about another inquiry so she may well have a serious conflict of interests.

Who is “we” though? What do you actually want to happen?

I don't dispute the fact that justice hasn't been done in many of the cases associated with the grooming gangs, and I agree that there were numerous individuals and authorities that were complicit in this failure. And I also accept that this was, at least in part, the result of misplaced fears around being accused of racism because of the ethnicity of the perpetrators. Though I also think that certain assumptions about the social class of the victims were also at play. I am pleased that there will be a public enquiry into how these crimes were allowed to happen.

I haven't seen any evidence that JP is trying to water down the inquiry. I'm aware that some of the victims want her to resign, but I understand that there are others who also want her to stay. If she has lost the trust of the majority of them, then perhaps she needs to take a step back and let someone else lead.

I don't know anyone who doesn't recognise that there were serious failings in these cases, and that we need to understand exactly what went on in order to learn from those failings. But equally, I don't see why it's controversial to suggest that we need to learn from other examples in which the abuse and exploitation of vulnerable women and girls has also been allowed to continue as an open secret. That isn't because I want to dilute anything - I'm not suggesting that the grooming inquiry itself should be broadened to include other issues, nor am I minimising the horrific crimes that have been committed by the Pakistani gangs or trying to detract attention from them. It is an issue that deserves attention in its own right. However, there is a wider context and I think we should look at that as well.

I’m not sure about ‘arguing’ as such (and I didn’t say that) but all the police forces, local
authorities, councillors, care home owners and social workers that have colluded and enabled the rapists (and may still be doing so) are certainly preventing justice from being done.

We may never find out how much though as a certain minister with a large Muslim population in her constituency (and therefore a potential conflict of interest) appears to be attempting to water down the inquiry to slow down the wheels of justice further.

I don’t think anyone can assume that those specific gangs have been stopped yet. A few have gone to prison, some are already out.

I am not a governor and so was not being asked govenor-specific questions like the one concerned.

But there was a section on grooming - what it involves, how it happens, how to spot signs of it in kids, what to do (tell the SGL in all cases).

There were also questions designed to establish an understanding of the differences between misinformation, disinformation and conspiracy theories. I firmly believe that this is a poor attempt at that.

The exact wording (my emphasis) is: “At a board meeting, your staff governor reports overhearing pupils in her class talking about a video they were sent, falsely claiming that men belonging to a particular religion are using new tactics to commit violent crimes against women in your local area.”

Governors were told that “pupils have sent the video to their friends because they think it’s true and want to help girls in their class to stay safe”.

They were then asked:
What type of online safety risk are the pupils in her class participating in spreading?
Misinformation
Disinformation
Conspiracy theories

I could well be wrong. But if they had worded the question in a way that made the ‘new tactics’ sound completely outlandish and overtly racist, would anyone honestly have a problem with it?

Who is arguing that they shouldn't be subject to the rule of law?