Tories demand Rayner apologise for Starmer’s ‘far-right bandwagon’ grooming gangs remark

Tories demand Rayner apologises for Starmer's 'far-right bandwagon' remark on grooming gangsReuters

Transcript

00:00Deputy Prime Minister for her answer. It is vital that scandals like this are never again covered up

00:06because of the racial background of perpetrators. And Baroness Casey's report said people who

00:12downplay the ethnic dimension are letting victims down, to use her words. So I do have to raise the

00:19language the Prime Minister used in January when he, I'm afraid to say, smeared campaigners as

00:25jumping on quotes, a far right bandwagon, simply for calling for the very inquiry he has now

00:31been forced to set up. Standing up for rape victims is not far right. So will the Deputy

00:39Prime Minister apologise for what the Prime Minister said?

00:45Well, I say, Mr Speaker, that the Prime Minister did not just raise issues, but acted on them. He

00:50brought the first prosecutions against screaming guns, called for action to address ethnicity

00:56issues in 2012. And the Honourable Member will know that the data that the previous government

01:01collected was inaccurate and not complete. And Casey recognised this, and it's one of the

01:07recommendations that we will be taking forward. The Prime Minister made those comments specifically

01:13about Tory ministers who sat for years in the government and did absolutely nothing about this scandal.