Wednesday, January 08, 2025
Divide and conquer - Jenrick playing dangerous games
The paper says that Jenrick was challenged repeatedly on Tuesday morning for having failed to act on the outcome of an inquiry into grooming gangs while he was in the Home Office, despite now demanding one, and for rarely mentioning the issue in the House of Commons until this year:
Badenoch had previously defended the shadow justice secretary’s right to make the comments, which have caused private disquiet among some Conservative MPs.
“What I have said is that millions of people have come into our country in recent times, but some of them are coming from countries and cultures that have backwards attitudes to women,” Jenrick told Times Radio. “And that’s backed up by the evidence that we have seen from the Jay report and the testimonies of the victims.
“Pakistani men are over-represented in those who are involved in the grooming gangs, and the evidence we have seen is that some of those have specifically preyed upon white, working-class girls because they viewed them as worthless.”
Prof Alexis Jay’s independent inquiry into child sexual abuse did not conclusively find there was an over-representation of Pakistani men, saying it found a lack of data which meant it was “impossible to know whether any particular ethnic group is over-represented as perpetrators of child sexual exploitation by networks”.
The Liberal Democrat deputy leader, Daisy Cooper, said: “Robert Jenrick’s attempt to exploit this appalling scandal for his own political gain is completely shameless. He didn’t lift a finger to help the victims when a minister, now he’s jumping on the bandwagon and acting like a pound shop Farage.
“Kemi Badenoch should sack him as shadow justice secretary and condemn his divisive comments, instead of letting him run a leadership campaign under her nose.”
As serious as this issue is, my party's reaction to this, as with other issues, is becoming rather predictable. They call for people to resign so often that they are devaluing the response and undermining their own case. And this time a call for resignation is actually justified. But what is Jenrick up to?
Well, the Guardian also reports that Tory insiders have privately accused Robert Jenrick of stoking divisions to fuel his own leadership ambitions.
One senior Conservative MP and Badenoch leadership supporter said: “Many in the Conservative party are worried that Jenrick is using the issue of grooming gangs for his own leadership ambitions. Painting a whole culture as alien is nothing short of xenophobic, and undermines the important issue of achieving justice for those poor girls who were let down by so many.
“He is busying toxifying the Conservative brand while [the Reform party leader] Nigel Farage is looking like the reasonable one. All because Kemi has failed to rein him in.”
One former Conservative colleague of Jenrick said he was “poisoning the discourse which could damage a very pertinent and important cause”. Another Tory MP described Jenrick’s morning interviews as a disgrace.
This attempt by Jenrick to carve a constituency for himself is dangerous and irresponsible. A previous Tory leader sacked Enoch Powell when he did something similar, Badenoch should follow suit with her maverick spokesperson and she should do it immediately.
