Reform UK leader admits he is worried that “we won’t perhaps get what we want out of this”
Nigel Farage raised fears over the grooming gangs inquiry after Labour announced the probe’s new chair. Former children’s commissioner Baroness Anne Longfield will resign the Labour whip to lead the investigation into rape gangs in Britain.
But Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, who has been piling pressure on the Government over the issue, expressed concerns that “we won’t perhaps get what we want out of this”. Speaking on his GB News show, the Clacton MP said: “It’s taken a very, very long time, but at last, they found somebody who’s prepared to chair the grooming gang inquiry. They’ve chosen Baroness Longfield, who was a Children’s Commissioner for six years.
“Well, they have a chair. I’ve got some reservations about this, number one, this will all take up to three years, which may well be after the next general election. Plus, whatever her background as a children’s commissioner, why pick a Labour peer?
“I mean, that will appear to everybody like, effectively, you’re marking your own homework. And there’ll be questions about her time, I think, as children’s commissioner. Surely she must have received many, many, many complaints, concerns about grooming gangs.
“Either way, I wonder whether it was clever to announce that the victims panel is actually going to be scrapped when we’ve been told from the start that the testimony of victims was integral to the whole process. I guess it’ll all come to a head on Thursday, when the victims, currently on that panel, will meet with the Home Secretary.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage (Image: GB NEWS)
“But tell you what, I don’t know. I worry we won’t perhaps get what we want out of this.”
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood set out the appointment and the inquiry’s terms of reference in the Commons yesterday. Of her appointment, Baroness Longfield said: “The Inquiry owes it to the victims, survivors and the wider public to identify the truth, address past failings and ensure that children and young people today are protected in a way that others were not.
“The Inquiry will follow the evidence and will not shy away from difficult or uncomfortable truths wherever we find them.”
There has been mounting pressure on the Government to move forward with the inquiry, first announced by the Prime Minister in June. The probe was plunged into chaos in October by five women quitting from the victim liaison panel in a row over the scope of the inquiry, while the final two candidates to chair the investigation also dropped out of the process.
