Wes Streeting was last night accused of ‘playing the race card’ over the grooming gangs scandal after warning of a far-Right terror attack if entire communities are ‘tarred with the same brush’.
The Health Secretary, who rebuked Tory leader Kemi Badenoch after she called for a new national inquiry into the issue, raised fears that vilifying ethnic groups for the ‘sickening’ sex abuse could lead to an atrocity on the scale of the 2019 mosque attacks in New Zealand.
More than 50 people were killed and 89 injured when a far-Right extremist opened fire in Christ-church, using a gun marked ‘For Rotherham’ in an apparent reference to child grooming by men of predominantly Pakistani heritage.
Mr Streeting said he had no difficulty calling out sex abuse crimes. But he told The Guardian: ‘If Kemi Badenoch is in any doubt whatsoever about where irresponsible and coarse public discourse can lead on this issue, look on the other side of the world in Christchurch, where someone walked into a mosque and killed innocent Muslims stone cold dead with a gun whose magazine had inscribed on it “for Rotherham”.’
The Tories accused him of ‘dog whistle politics’ and an attempt to save his Ilford North seat, which he held by just 528 votes at the last election against an Independent British-Palestinian candidate.
Former Tory minister Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg said: ‘It is this type of playing the race card that led to the cover-up, with people saying, “We’re not going to believe these white girls – we’re not going to do anything about it because we upset community relations”. He has clearly learnt nothing from the thousands who have been abused.’
A spokesman for Mr Streeting said last night: ‘Wes was pointing out that two things are true – political correctness failed victims of Pakistani rape gangs, and people of Pakistani heritage appalled by these crimes are fearful of being tarred by the same brush.’
Wes Streeting raised fears that vilifying ethnic groups for the ‘sickening’ sex abuse could lead to an atrocity on the scale of the 2019 mosque attacks in New Zealand .
Former Tory minister Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg (pictured in 2019) took a swipe at the Health Secretary suggesting he was playing the ‘race card’
Gang ringleader and groomer Qari Abdul Rauf (pictured) racked up the highest amount in legal fees – totalling to £285,000
Qari Abdul Rauf, a ringleader of the Rochdale paedophile ring, was still living in the UK in 2024
It came as Tory justice spokesman Robert Jenrick demanded Labour stop handing millions of pounds to Pakistan while the country blocks the removal of child sex abusers from Britain.
Grooming gang ringleaders who raped and exploited dozens of young white girls in Rochdale and elsewhere cannot be deported because Islamabad has refused to accept them.
Pakistan has received more than £1billion in aid from the UK over the past decade.
‘It’s shameful that Pakistan is abusing our generosity, and madness the Government isn’t doing something about it,’ he said.
The MoS can reveal lawyers for a ringleader of an Asian grooming gang have been granted anonymity.
Qari Abdul Rauf, 56, still lives in Rochdale, where he committed his crimes, almost a decade after he was released from jail and told he would be deported.
In what are believed to be unprecedented court orders, the media is banned from naming those who represented him in his deportation fight.
Dawn Alford at the Society of Editors said it raised ‘grave misgivings in terms of press freedom and open justice’.