Britain’s Rape Scandal Returns to the Front Pages

 https://www.commentary.org/articles/stephen-pollard/britains-rape-scandal-persists/

Jess Phillips, a member of the Labour Party’s huge majority in the British House of Commons, was first elected to

Parliament in 2015 and has made a name for herself as a champion of female victims of male violence. Every year since her arrival, she has read out a running list of the names of women killed by a man. After Labour’s election victory last year, Phillips was, appropriately enough, appointed as—to provide her full title, including parentheses—parliamentary under-secretary of state (minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls).

Given the extent of the national scandal, which Phillips herself campaigned on while in opposition, one might have expected the answer to Oldham Council’s request to be an obvious yes—and for the inquiry to be nationwide in scope rather than limited to Oldham. But Phillips said no. This had, she said, nothing to do with her or the government. It was a local matter for the council to deal with. And so the “grooming gang” scandal is back in the news, where it should al-ways have been.

To understand that, you need to add the key element to the story I have so far omitted. The victims of the rape gangs were almost all young white girls and the rapists almost all adult Pakistani men. The main reason the gangs were allowed to operate with impunity was the widespread view among the police and the authorities responsible for the welfare of the girls that it would damage “community relations” if the crimes were investigated, let alone prosecuted—and that on no account should the ethnic background of anyone involved ever be discussed.