She has made a name for herself as a champion of women and girls in the face of the threat they face from abusive males.
It was in this role that she was asked by Oldham council to authorise a government inquiry into historic child abuse in the area.
Phillips said no. It was up to the council to decide if it wanted to conduct its own inquiry. The Government would stay out of it.
To be clear: a self-described feminist who has frequently railed against the injustice of men’s violence against women and girls wants no part of an inquiry into the alleged systematic abuse – including rape, torture and threats of murder – of young, vulnerable working class girls by gangs of men.
To give Phillips her due, it is entirely possible that this decision was made at a higher level of government and that she has been given the job by a more senior colleague of taking the media hit for an unpopular and unjustifiable decision. Take it from me – an under-parliamentary secretary of state has very little executive authority, especially when it comes to decisions that could impact on the government as a whole, well beyond your own department.
But if that were the case, and given Phillips’ record of resigning when faced with a policy she doesn’t support, why is she still in her job?
If there were a better political operation inside this government, it would already have been prepared to take this decision out of Phillips’ hands, given the suspicions, allegations and conspiracy theories that swirl around this controversial issue: media reports constantly focus on the ethnic backgrounds of many of these “grooming gangs” (more accurately described by J K Rowling as “rape gangs”). Expecting an MP who is already electorally vulnerable in her largely Muslim constituency to take such a decision is clumsy and politically inept, given that any refusal would provoke inevitable and fierce cynicism regarding her motivations.
Naturally there are those who will fear for the future health of community relations if a formal nationwide inquiry is launched into the various examples of rape gangs especially if a significant proportion of their members are identified as Muslim/Pakistani. Remember when Labour MP Naz Shaw reposted a post on Twitter/X that suggested that abused girls in Rotherham and elsewhere needed to shut their mouths “For the good of diversity”?
To be clear, such a public inquiry might conceivably raise difficult questions for some communities, for the Government (and for both parties of government) and for the entire project of multiculturalism. And to be even clearer: that doesn’t matter a damn. All that matters is that anyone, including council officials and police officers, who conspired to enable rapists and abusers to carry out their appalling crimes against these young women are identified and held to account.
There is a large, angry constituency out there already willing to believe the worst about the motivations of Labour politicians whom they suspect would happily sacrifice the lives and safety of young white girls for the sake of their parliamentary careers. So why on earth play into that drama by allowing Jess Phillips to take this decision?
DT.
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