Pro-Gaza Independent MP Ayoub Khan has been criticised by former Conservative MP and GB News host Michael Portillo after branding the grooming gangs scandal a "false right-wing narrative".During a Mirpur Airport Demand Grand Conference in Birmingham, Khan claimed that grooming gangs were "a narrative that is done in order to sow division" - a speech which has been branded "naive at best and malicious at worst".FULL STORY HERE.
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00:00MPs grooming gang comments slammed. So this is an independent MP who has said what exactly, Michael?
00:08Ayyub Khan is the independent MP for Birmingham Perry Bar.
00:12A seat you once contested, you were telling me in the room, back in the day.
00:16I contested in 1983, but fairly unsuccessfully.
00:19He has talked about a grooming gang narrative, which is being spread in order to sow division.
00:25Now, first of all, you used the word grooming gang. I think we ought to call them rape gangs.
00:29Yes. To be fair, I normally do. I suppose grooming is the catch-all, but it rather glosses over the more vile nature of the crime.
00:36Well, absolutely. And let's face it, the rape gangs is not a narrative. It is a series of facts.
00:44And we don't actually know enough of those facts, because although a number of men were convicted of terrible crimes,
00:51the government has withdrawn any idea of having an inquiry into how widespread this was,
00:56and in particular, what was the institutional and governmental response to these crimes.
01:02But Ayyub Khan is saying that the grooming gang narrative is being spread in order to sow division.
01:09He's not actually, in as many words, denying that these things happen.
01:14But when you start talking about a narrative, it's almost as though you're not accepting the facts of the matter.
01:19And the facts of the matter are there are a very large number of girls, underage girls, who were raped by gangs in northern cities.
01:27Some of them are now doing time, quite rightly, but we suspect that the problem was more widespread.
01:33But our suspicions cannot be proved or disproven because the government won't hold an inquiry.
01:37Would you have held an inquiry if you had that decision in office?
01:40Well, actually, it may be rather inconsistent.
01:43I think inquiries are generally a waste of time.
01:46They take a very long time and governments ignore their findings when they turn out.
01:49What I would like to see is a government determined to take action, to say the policies of the police,
01:55the policies of the local authorities were clearly wrong and they have to be completely changed.
01:59Yeah, maybe just some accountability would be in order at this point.
02:02That would be a nice starting point.