Nigel Farage today declared Labour‘s grooming gangs inquiry is ‘dead in the water’ as he called for Parliament to set up its own probe into group-based sex abuse.
The Reform UK leader claimed the public were ‘running out of patience’ with the Government’s promised inquiry, which is yet to get up and running.
He spoke at a press conference in central London alongside Ellie-Ann Reynolds, a survivor of child sexual abuse.
She is one of five women to have recently quit the inquiry’s victims and survivors liaison panel.
Ms Reynolds on Monday hit out at the ‘very controlling’ nature of the Government’s stalled probe and said she had ‘no faith’ in ministers.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer in June bowed to intense pressure to implement a full national inquiry into grooming gangs.
But, more than four months on, the Home Office has still to appoint anyone to lead the probe.
Government insiders have admitted it could take months yet to find someone to chair the inquiry.
Nigel Farage declared Labour ‘s grooming gangs inquiry is ‘dead in the water’ as he called for Parliament to set up its own probe into group-based sex abuse
Ellie-Ann Reynolds is one of five women to have recently quit the inquiry’s victims and survivors liaison panel
Ex-police officer Jim Gamble and Annie Hudson, a former senior social worker, have both withdrawn as leading candidates to chair the probe.
The inquiry was also thrown into disarray after the departure of five women from the victims liaison panel.
Four of the women who quit, including Ms Reynolds, said they would be prepared to return if safeguarding minister Jess Phillips resigns from Government.
But five of those still on the advisory panel have said they would only stay if Ms Phillips remained in post. There were originally around 30 survivors on the panel.
Mr Farage on Monday afternoon said it was time for Parliament to ‘step up and do its job’ by intervening in the grooming gang scandal.
The Reform leader said he would be speaking to Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker of the House of Commons, and would write to the Home Affairs Select Committee about Parliament using its ‘extraordinary powers’ to investigate the scandal.
He suggested both the House of Lords and the House of Commons could be involved in a ‘commission’.
Mr Farage added: ‘I am saying, here is the most enormous opportunity for Parliament, and indeed for this Government, to restore some public trust in the institution and those that currently inhabit it on an issue that has been gnawing away at our public consciences for well over a decade.’
The Reform leader said his proposal would see a grooming gangs inquirytake place ‘in the full glare of media’.
‘It won’t take years to conclude – it will take many weeks, it might take a couple of months, but so be it,’ he added.
‘And it will have the power to put in the Palace of Westminster those who are suspected of colluding in the cover-up of one of the most shameful stories in the history of our islands.’
Ms Reynolds said she chose to speak alongside Mr Farage at the press conference because she would ‘go to anybody that will listen, and anybody that’s going to make a change’.
Asked why she had chosen to appear alongside the Reform leader, she told journalists: ‘My choice was because quite frankly, us girls and young boys – because young boys are nowhere near as mentioned as they should be – we will go to anybody that will listen.
‘I’ve sat in my local town, and I’ve had meetings with the MP, she is Labour there, I begged for help, and she openly admitted that she was discussing my case with my local police force, and they said how much they had failed me.
‘I offered to do many things to raise awareness. She said that she’d do it. And I’m still waiting nearly a year later.
‘I will go to anybody that will listen, and anybody that’s going to make a change to this country.’
Responding to Mr Farage’s press conference, Labour Party chairwoman Anna Turley said: ‘The exploitation of children by grooming gangs is an appalling scandal and this Labour Government is determined to deliver justice for the survivors.
‘As the Prime Minister and Home Secretary promised the survivors, the scope of the inquiry will not change.
‘It will examine the ethnicity and religion of offenders, have full powers to compel witnesses and uncover the truth.
‘While the Tories failed to act as this crisis was unfolding, and Reform shout from the sidelines, this Labour Government is getting on with the job of delivering a national inquiry: putting survivors at the heart of the process and holding the institutions that failed them to account.’
