Suella Braverman Warned Grooming Gang Race Rhetoric Is A "Gift" To The Far Right
Suella Braverman has been criticised for her language surrounding so-called "grooming gangs". (Alamy)
5 min read
Home secretary Suella Braverman has been accused of “mainstreaming far-right talking points” with remarks spotlighting race in her announcement of the government's latest plans to tackle so-called “grooming gangs”.
On Monday, the government announced a new Grooming Gangs Taskforce which will see specialist officers help police forces tackle child sexual exploitation and group-based sex offender investigations – with ethnicity data collection set to be part of the strategy. Writing in the Mail to launch the taskforce, Braverman described perpetrators of such crimes as "almost all British-Pakistani, who hold cultural attitudes completely incompatible with British values". She added that authorities have not adequately addressed cases "because they thought it more likely that they would be accused of racism than praised for stopping the mistreatment".
There have been a number of high profile group-based child sexual exploitation cases – notably in Rotherham, Telford, Oldham and Newcastle – in which men of Muslim or Pakistani heritage have committed offences against white girls. A Home Office report from 2020, however, concluded there was no evidence any ethnic group is overrepresented in cases of child exploitation overall, leading to questions over Braverman's decision to spotlight cases involving specific racial groups.
Ella Cockbain, a leading academic on human trafficking, smuggling & exploitation at University College London's department of security and crime science, believes that the government's rhetoric on so-called grooming gangs is "a gift to the far right".
"[Suella Braverman] has just massively mainstreamed far-right talking points," she told PoliticsHome.
Cockbain felt that Braverman's comments, which she repeated on Sky News and the BBC on Sunday, contributed to a "mainstreaming" of a far-right narrative that Asian and Muslim men disproportionately posed a threat to white British girls.
"We know from the past more than a decade now of racialised coverage around grooming gangs – or so-called grooming gangs, because the term is quite problematic – that the far right have capitalised off this, and they've been helped enormously by the kind of legitimisation of this narrative," she told PoliticsHome.
The ethnicity and race of the perpetrators of group-based child exploitation in places including Rotherham has been linked to crimes by the far right that appear to have been racially aggravated.
In 2015, an 81-year-old Muslim man in Rotherham was kicked to death while being called a "groomer". In 2019 a far-right terrorist in Christchurch, New Zealand wrote "for Rotherham" on his ammunition before opening fire at a mosque, killing 51 people.
Cockbain felt that the racialising of group-based sexual exploitation is part of a "much broader history of racialising crime".
"[Stereotypes of] black men as robbers, or black men as rapists, or Muslim men as terrorists: this has got a long history, and we know that it's really, really played into far right activity," she continued.
"When they're talking about cultural factors, they're never talking about cultural factors when it's white British men."
Cockbain felt that early intervention should be the focus of any efforts to tackle child sexual exploitation, but believed that core services to achieve this had been impacted by austerity. A 2015 report into the Rotherham sexual exploitation scandal by Baroness Casey found that at Rotherham Council, poor management, bullying, sexism, excessive caseloads, cover-ups, and fears that mentioning the ethnicity of perpetrators would be seen as racist were among the reasons group-based child sexual exploitation had been allowed to happen.
Nick Lowles, chief executive of anti-racism and anti-facism organisation Hope Not Hate, also raised concerns that the Home Secretary's language "stirs up hate".
"Child sexual abuse has long been a trope used by the likes of [far right activist] Tommy Robinson and the far right in their Islamophobic narratives about the Muslim community," Lowles told PoliticsHome.
"The Home Secretary singling out British Pakistani men, when child sexual abuse is not confined to a specific ethnic group, irresponsibly stirs up hate."
A source familiar with the government's Grooming Gangs Taskforce plans defended the Home Secretary's comments, pointing to the number of high profile cases that had involved Pakistani men, and dismissed any suggestion that raising the issue was playing to the far right.
Instead they said this was an issue that was of high importance to a broad range of voters, particularly in the North, and that because the concern was so widespread, that might include people who also hold far right views.
"The far right care about Brexit, and they care about terrorism, does that mean we don’t tackle terrorists?" they said.
They pointed to new research by Bradshaw Advisory for the Manchester Evening News's Northern Agenda newsletter that found only five per cent of people polled felt that grooming gangs and child sexual exploitation were not a problem in the North.
The poll of 4,190 people, including 939 people in the North, conducted in March prior to Braverman's comments found that 63 per cent of people believed child exploitation and so-called grooming gangs are a current problem in the North – with 43 per cent saying they believed local public bodies have turned a blind eye to the issue. Fifty seven per cent believed this was due to concern about accusations of racism.
A spokesperson for the Muslim Council of Britain was also critical of the rhetoric used to launch the taskforce.
"The grooming of young people is criminal, abhorrent and goes against the tenets of the Islamic faith," a spokesperson told PoliticsHome.
"Race and religion should neither be an inhibition to investigating the abhorrent crime of child sexual exploitation, nor should they be leveraged to pander to prejudices.
"In 2020, research conducted by the Home Office found that the vast majority of perpetrators of group-based child sexual exploitation (CSE) were white men under 30 years of age.
"The government would do well to adhere to the facts of the matter, rather than deploying deeply divisive, racially charged rhetoric."
A Downing Street spokesperson said the government’s approach sought to address the “misplaced fear of being accused of racism” that meant certain authorities “let the crimes happen”.
“The Prime Minister's view is that this should never be allowed to happen again, which is why we will never put political correctness above the safety of children,” the spokesperson said.
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