Reform UK say they will take action on Grooming Gangs
Reform UK’s Zia Yusuf has demanded Andy Burnham be held to account for betraying the victims of the grooming gangs and has announced major new policies to make perpetrators and complicit public servants face justice.
A Reform spokesman said: The grooming gangs scandal is the greatest state failure in British history. Public bodies and politicians aided and abetted the mass rape and sexual exploitation of children.
“Predominantly white working-class girls were sexually exploited by ruthless criminal gangs who were, and are, disproportionately men of Pakistani nationality or heritage.
“Andy Burnham’s record on the grooming gangs in particular is shameful, and he has never once apologised in a personal capacity for his own role.
"This a man who was first elected as MP for Leigh in 2001, served as a Minister, including in the Home Office, in the Blair and Brown Governments and was then elected Mayor of Greater Manchester and who took over 16 years to call for an inquiry into grooming gangs in Manchester, only to whitewash the subsequent report to cover his own tracks.”
Within the first 100 days of Reform UK forming a Government they say they will:
Open the books and release all files held by public bodies relating to the grooming gangs going back 40 years.
Increase police and National Crime Agency taskforce funding by £300m to £400m so that they can adequately investigate both the perpetrators and complicit police, social workers and politicians. They will be given all the resources they require.
Reform UK Shadow Home Secretary Zia Yusuf said: “Andy Burnham has had the power to bring the perpetrators and enablers of the Grooming Gangs to justice, but in the words of Maggie Oliver he “turned away” from the victims.
"Time and again he spurned opportunities to do what was necessary. The thousands of survivors are rightly furious, including the ones in the Makerfield constituency. Now he seeks to use the very communities he betrayed to catapult himself to power.
"Reform will quadruple funding for dedicated police taskforces to hunt down all perpetrators and enablers of the grooming gangs and release all files and internal communications of councils, police and ministers to the public."