Kemi Badenoch has taken aim at Keir Starmer over his failures on grooming gangs.
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Kemi Badenoch skewers Keir Starmer with three-word slap down over grooming gangs
Kemi Badenoch has taken aim at Keir Starmer over his failures on grooming gangs.
By Steph Spyro, Deputy Political Editor
16:32, Mon, Jun 16, 2025 | UPDATED: 16:37, Mon, Jun 16, 2025Share ArticleBookmark
Badenoch slams Labour for voting against national inquiry
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Kemi Badenoch has slammed Sir Keir Starmer’s “extraordinary failure of leadership” over the grooming gang scandal. The Tory leader told the Commons on Monday that the announcement of an inquiry was “another U-turn”.
She said: “After months of pressure the prime minister has finally accepted our calls for a full statutory national inquiry into the grooming gangs. “I welcome that we have finally reached this point. This is a victory for the survivors who have been calling for this for years.”
Mrs Badenoch added: “The Prime Minister’s handling of this scandal is an extraordinary failure of leadership. His judgement has once again been found wanting… he accused those of us demanding justice for the victims of this scandal as ‘jumping on a far-right bandwagon’.”
She pointed out that Labour MPs had voted three times against a national inquiry while the Liberal Democrats “didn’t bother to vote at all, asleep at the wheel”.
Baroness Louise Casey’s review into child sex abuse by grooming gangs found suspects were often “disproportionately likely” to be Asian men, the Home Secretary has said. Yvette Cooper unveiled the findings from the rapid national audit to MPs, after the Prime Minister committed to launching a national inquiry into the abuse.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said there had been a “timeline of failure from 2009 to 2025”, as she responded to Conservative Leader Kemi Badenoch.
Ms Cooper said: “I don’t think she can have read this report and the seriousness of its conclusions, because it sets out a timeline of failure from 2009 to 2025.”