Rupert Lowe has hit back at Reform UK’s leader
Nigel Farage says a Reform UK government would boost a grooming gangs taskforce’s funding to £300m (Image: Getty)
A social media row has erupted after Nigel Farage outlined his plan to “deliver justice” for rape gangs scandal victims. Reform UK’s leader announced his plans on Saturday (May 30), telling followers mainly white-working class girls had been brutalised by criminal gangs who he said were “and still are” men of Pakistani nationality or heritage.
He claimed “state-enabled” child sexual exploitation continues in places including Wigan and Makerfield, where Reform UK is hoping to win a by-election. Mr Farage accused Greater Manchester Mayor, Andy Burnham, of engaging in a “conspiracy of silence” on the issues along with the police, media and local authorities “for decades”. Reform UK’s leader said: “It is time for action.”
Rupert Lowe accuses Nigel Farage of doing nothing on grooming gangs (Image: Getty)
That action would include releasing all files held by public bodies linked to grooming gangs going back 40 years within 100 days of a Reform UK government, should the outfit win the next general election, due in 2029.
Mr Farage said Reform would boost the National Crime Agency’s taskforce funding by £300million to “adequately investigate the perpetrators and “complicit” police officers, social workers and politicians, who he claimed has “enabled” the criminal grooming gangs.
He concluded his post: “This is our plan to finally deliver justice for our girls.”
Within half an hour of the announcement, former Reform UK MP, Rupert Lowe, accused Mr Farage of previously promising an independent rape gang inquiry, but doing nothing.
He replied to Mr Farage: “I sat next to you in Parliament when you promised your own independent rape gang inquiry. You did the media rounds and took the credit. Boasted about the headlines. Accepted the political gain.
“What did you do? Nothing. You delivered nothing. You never mentioned it again. I pushed you to act, you weren’t interested.
“You broke that promise. You even insulted our own independent inquiry as a ‘waste of space’. It is filthy politics, and you should apologise for it.”
Mr Lowe quit Reform UK amid claims of workplace bullying, threats and political differences last year. The MP for Great Yarmouth insisted he was pushed out of Reform because he was a challenge to Mr Farage.
Since he left Reform UK, Mr Lowe has set up Restore Britain, which is also fielding a candidate in the Makerfield by-election.
In October, Mr Farage urged MPs to take over the grooming gangs inquiry and run it as a select committee investigation or Parliament-wide commission to make prosecutions could take place.
His intervention came after a grooming gang survivor quit an official inquiry who claimed that probe had been “rigged from the start”.
Andy Burnham says initiated the biggest review into this issue the country has seen (Image: Getty)
The Government established a grooming gangs inquiry in response to Baroness Casey’s National Audit on Group-Based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse.
Mr Burnham in a tweet insisted he acted immediately on the issue of grooming gangs as he criticised others for manipulating the facts.
The Greater Manchester mayor said he had looked towards the issue, while “lots of other politicians, in fact the vast majority, were just looking in the other direction”.
In a video posted on X, Mr Burnham claimed he “initiated the biggest review into this issue that the country has seen”. In the clip, Mr Burnham addressed issues and concerns raised on the doorstep, including grooming gangs and clean air zones.
On grooming gangs, he said: “I have got a really clear story that I want to get over, because sometimes people play politics with this issue and manipulate the facts.
“I want to tell you directly what I did. Within days of coming in as mayor, we’d seen the BBC programme The Three Girls, and I acted immediately on it, particularly after I’d heard an interview with Maggie Oliver about a police investigation in Manchester, Operation Augusta, which had been closed down.
“I initiated the biggest review into this issue that the country has seen. And that was when I was looking towards the issue, but lots of other politicians, in fact the vast majority, were just looking in the other direction.
“That review into Manchester, but with subsequent reviews into Oldham and Rochdale, and the wide-ranging review has led to major police investigations being reopened. It has led to arrests, charges, and convictions of perpetrators who would otherwise have walked free.”
Evidence on the ethnicity of grooming gang members who sexually exploit children is mixed.
In an independent review of the Rotherham case, Professor Alexis Jay found that the majority of “known perpetrators were of Pakistani heritage”. This included five men convicted in 2010.
Greater Manchester Police identified men convicted at the trial in the Rochdale abuse scandal in February 2012 as British Pakistani.
Abusers in Telford were men of South Asian heritage, according to an independent inquiry of the case.
A Home Office commissioned study of available data in 2020 found limited research on offenders’ identity and poor quality data.
Abuse by white offenders has received less attention, including convictions in 2010 after a group of white men and a woman abused 30 children in Cambourne, Cornwall.
