| | They would actually. |
| | Absolutely right. |
| | Let's talk to Sunil Sharma, political commentator, host of the Rational Voices with Sunil podcast. |
| | Sunil, very good to see you. |
| | Good morning, Mike. |
| | Nice to talk to you. |
| | Let's talk about what's going on on the front lines of Labour. |
| | Massive, massive rebellion coming on this grooming gang story. |
| | I think they've got it incredibly wrong. |
| | You know, Jess Phillips thought she could sneak it into the end of the final session of Parliament just the other day. |
| | I think it was Tuesday. |
| | And it turns out that it's blown up in their faces, isn't it? |
| | Yeah, for sure. |
| | I think the reality is Labour are trying to cover this up or give it less attention as it needs. |
| | I think we all know why a lot of this stuff happened in Labour-led councils. |
| | They don't want to lose that demographic vote. |
| | So naturally, they're going to try and not do anything with this grooming gang scandal. |
| | I think great attention needs to be drawn on us. |
| | It is sick. |
| | It is worrying that the fact that the safety of young girls is not the top priority of our leader when we know for a fact that they've been assaulted, groomed, all these different things over the last 10, 15, 20 years. |
| | And it's out there. |
| | It's in the open. |
| | It's in plain sight. |
| | What kind of message does it send to the rest of the country when our leadership, our current government are not prepared to take the harshest possible action? |
| | I think it's really sick. |
| | It's really messed up. |
| | And I think a lot of people, if they're not angry enough right now, will be further angered by what's going on. |
| | Well, this is it. |
| | And I mean, there's a grassroots rebellion, which is bubbling under and getting bigger and bigger by the day. |
| | There's a campaign group called Blue Labour. |
| | They're calling it a national evil that requires a national response, rather similar to what you were saying. |
| | And basically, Keir Starmer's rejected any demand to relaunch a statutory inquiry. |
| | Let's have a look at what he had to say. |
| | Of course, I accept the argument that there should be wider inquiries. |
| | There have been a number of inquiries. |
| | We've had hundreds of recommendations. |
| | We've had a national inquiry with 22 recommendations. |
| | My strong belief is we've got to implement those recommendations. |
| | At the moment, and under the last government, they just stacked up and sat on a shelf. |
| | So they need to be implemented. |
| | We're now implementing the recommendations from the national inquiry. |
| | 17 of them we're taking forward. |
| | Of course, if there's further local inquiries that need it, then we put some funding behind that and they should happen. |
| | But I don't think that simply saying we need more inquiries when we haven't even acted on the ones that we've had is necessarily the only way forward. |
| | The problem, of course, for Starmer is that he's had all sorts of inquiries into many other things, which are nowhere near as important as this. |
| | And the other problem he's got is that Blue Labour was started by a guy called Lord Glassman, a Labour peer, who's very close to Morgan McSweeney, who is kind of the brains behind whatever Keir Starmer does. |
| | So this ain't going anywhere anytime soon. |
| | And rightly so, this should not be going anywhere. |
| | Like, you know, I don't understand how hard it is for him to come out there and say this is almost like a national emergency. |
| | How hard is it for him to say the priorities of those victims are going to come first and foremost? |
| | And then what we're going to do is make sure this never happens again. |
| | I just don't understand why this isn't for him right now. |
| | His number one priority in solving this horrendous crimes that have happened in the last 10, 15 years to sit there and just pass it on to local authorities who are already under-resourced, under-qualified, don't have the capacity to know what to do in this circumstance. |
| | They failed these people the last 10, 15 years. |
| | The idea that they're now going to be able to save these people is ludicrous. |
| | He needs to put way more resources into solving this. |
| | I don't think it's that hard. |
| | I think most people, regardless of where they stand politically, socially, will agree that what happened in the last 10, 15 years is sick and wrong. |
| | And I think everyone, the majority of the people in this country would be more than willing to help and to put an end to it. |
| | I just don't understand his logic in terms of what he's doing right now. |
| | No, exactly right. |
| | An awful lot of Muslim community leaders have also been saying that they want something done because they're getting affected by this because as much as they are not involved in the grooming gangs and the rape gangs, because they tend to be from a very small portion of particular sections of Pakistan who happen to be living now in this country, you know, they want to be sort of given a clear wall between them and these ghastly individuals. |
| | But that's not happening. |
| | No, and I think that's, again, the deeply concerned thing. |
| | I think the reality is that the priorities of Starmer and this Labour government are not in the best interests of the people of this country. |
| | They feed the globalist elites in Westminster and Brussels, not the everyday person. |
| | And I think what's really, really worrying is, you talked about Greggs earlier on in terms of people stealing things from shops like Greggs. |
| | I think when you're not even safe in your own country, I think that is such a big, big concern. |
| | We know economically they're failing. |
| | We know structurally the country's failing. |
| | But when you're now starting to question the safety of young girls or just general people at work or just general people in this country, I think that's really, really a step too far. |
| | Exactly right. |
| | And meanwhile, Rachel Reeves back in the news this morning, she's taken yet another freebie. |
| | It was a while ago, but she's only just declared it. |
| | And she said only recently that she wouldn't do this anymore. |
| | It looks like she was talking absolute and utter BS. |
| | Well, you know, again, I think for a lot of people, again, the hypocrisy, they went rightly after a lot of the Tory government, the previous government in terms of some of the stuff they were doing like this. |
| | And rightly so, they made a lot of anger towards that. |
| | And now they're doing the exact same thing, if not doing it worse, that they're lying on record. |
| | I just don't think they care. |
| | I don't think Rachel Reeves sits there and thinks the fact that she's already said that she's not going to do it and she still continues to do it. |
| | She doesn't understand the implications because of where her surroundings, her little bubble, she doesn't actually feel the impact. |
| | She doesn't feel the impact of the grooming gangs that's going on. |
| | She doesn't feel the impact of people being less safe because she can, you know, dance away at these theatre places and be away from the actual realities of the UK for the majority of people. |
| | So they are so unaware of what's going on in this country and the priorities of other people in this country that they're just stuck in this kind of, I don't know, globalist elite program or place. |
| | And so the rest of the country just doesn't matter. |
| | So I think they kind of feel like they can do what they want. |
| | And I think that's really, really bad for the country overall. |
| | I think so. |
| | Sunil, good to talk to you. |
| | Thanks very much indeed. |
| | Sunil Sharma, political commentator, host of the Rational Voices with Sunil podcast. |
| | Nothing short of a full national inquiry into grooming gangs will satisfy the electorate, as has Alan de Merz. |
| | It's our Jess Phillips credibility. |