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The Labour Party has voted down a probe into the rape gangs
Three out of four Britons want Prime Minister Keir Starmer to launch a national inquiry into the sexual abuse of thousands of underage girls by ‘grooming gangs’, according to a new poll. Starmer’s ruling Labour Party has already rejected calls for such an investigation.
Conducted by YouGov on behalf of the Women’s Policy Center and published on Thursday by GB News, the survey suggested that 76% of the public back demands for a probe into the abuse, while only 13% reject these demands.
Some 84% of Conservative voters and 65% of Labour voters support an inquiry, as do 91% of Reform voters, according to the poll.
Hours before the poll was published, Parliament rejected a Conservative-proposed amendment to a child protection bill that would have set up a national inquiry into the gangs by 364 votes to 111. All 411 Labour MPs either voted against the amendment or abstained, while 101 of 111 Conservatives and all five Reform MPs supported it.
The vote came after weeks of constant posts by SpaceX CEO and X owner Elon Musk drawing attention to the activity of the gangs, and to Starmer’s handling of the rapes during his time in charge of the Crown Prosecutorial Service (CPS) from 2008 until 2013.
The gangs systematically raped and tortured tens of thousands of underage girls in towns across northern England over the last two decades, according to multiple government and media reports. Almost all of the perpetrators were Pakistani men, and the victims white British girls. Successive governments declined to investigate the scandal – which received mainstream media attention after a series of reports by The Times in 2011 – and several police departments covered up the existence of the gangs, inquiries later found.
Under Starmer, the CPS was heavily criticized for declining to prosecute a gang in Rochdale, and police in Rotherham told a 2015 inquiry that they considered the CPS unwilling to bring charges against the alleged perpetrators.
Musk has called Starmer “evil,” and according to the Financial Times, is working on a behind-the-scenes campaign to oust the British prime minister.
Starmer’s already dismal approval rating has sunk even further since Musk began attacking his handling of the rape gangs last week. According to a YouGov poll published on Monday, 63% of voters disapprove of his government’s performance, while just 16% approve, a fall of two points since December.
