Tory ministers at war over child $ex abuse gangs – Home Secretary Suella Braverman has been dumped by one of her closest political allies for claiming child $ex grooming gangs are ‘predominantly’ made up of British-Pakistani men.
Steve Baker, the Northern Ireland Minister who ran Ms Braverman’s Tory leadership campaign last year, is understood to have withdrawn his personal support for her in the wake of her much-criticised remarks in April.
Allies of Mr Baker, a senior eurosceptic, said he was unhappy with the attack on a specific minority ethnic group when official figures say white Brits are responsible in the majority of cases of child abuse.
Ms Braverman, seen as a leading right-wing candidate to become the next Tory leader, was speaking in the wake of cases in towns like Rotherham and Rochdale that were downplayed by local officials afraid of being branded racist.
Tory ministers at war over child $ex abuse gangs
She was widely criticised by Labour and Tory moderates including Baroness Warsi at the time. But Mr Baker would be first figure from right of the party to indicate disquiet over the outburst, which the Home Secretary has since defended.
One ally of the Northern Ireland Minister told MailOnline: ‘If she had said this is a problem predominantly carried out by white men in their own homes but that in some areas it was carried out by Pakistani men and covered up for political reasons that would have been fine.
‘But she has heaped shame upon innocent men. It is not that she is stupid but that she is unwise.’
Steve Baker, the Northern Ireland Minister who ran Ms Braverman’s Tory leadership campaign last year, is understood to have severed political ties with her in the wake of her much-criticised remarks in April.
Allies of Mr Baker, a senior eurosceptic from the right of the party, said he was furious at the remarks she made to Sky News about ‘vulnerable white English girls being pursued and raped and drugged and harmed by gangs of British Pakistani men’.
Mr Baker became a senior figure in Mrs Braverman’s leadership campaign after his own tilt at the Tory leadership fell at an early hurdle last year. She was eliminated after the second round of voting and they both then endorsed Liz Truss.
However this did not stop them from being handed jobs by Rishi Sunak when he became leader following Ms Truss’s chaotic 49-day premiership. Mr Baker was brought in to work with Chris Heaton-Harris – a fellow hardline Brexiteer – to solve issues in Northern Ireland stemming from the decision to leave the EU.
Ms Braverman was made Home Secretary by Ms Truss last summer but later resigned for sharing secret documents with an ally. When Mr Sunak took over six days later he reinstated her, in the interest of party unity.
In April she used a television appearance to promote a crime crackdown to describe a ‘systematic and institutional failure’ to protect children from $exual abuse as ‘one of the biggest scandals in recent years in our history’.
‘What we’ve seen is a practice whereby vulnerable white English girls sometimes in care, sometimes who are in challenging circumstances, being pursued and raped and drugged and harmed by gangs of British-Pakistani men who have worked in child abuse rings or networks,’ she told Sky News’ Sophy Ridge on Sunday show.
‘We have seen institutions and state agencies, whether it is social workers, teachers, the police, turn a blind eye to these signs of abuse out of political correctness, out of fear of being called racist, out of fear of being called bigoted.’
Mrs Braverman was challenged about a Home Office study published in 2020 that found child $exual abuse gangs are most commonly made up of white men.
Mr Baker (background) became a senior figure in Mrs Braverman’s leadership campaign after his own tilt at the Tory leadership fell at an early hurdle last year. But she was eliminated after the second round of voting and they both then endorsed Liz Truss.
But the Home Secretary pointed to other reports, including into the Rotherham abuse scandal, as being ‘unflinching in their assessment of the problem’.
‘There have been several reports since about the predominance of certain ethnic groups – and I say British Pakistani males – who hold cultural values totally at odds with British values.
‘Who see women in a demeaned and illegitimate way and who pursue an outdated and frankly heinous approach in terms of the way they behave.
‘We’ve got to stamp that out with criminal law and proper safeguarding and we are only going to do that if, as a society, we face up to the facts and the truth of what’s actually going on.’
At least 1,400 girls were left to be abused by Asian men in Rotherham because the authorities were too scared to admit there was a race issue, a 2014 report found.
Over a 16-year period, children as young as 11 were $exually exploited by gangs of men – most of them of Pakistani origin.
But police and council officials suppressed evidence of the crimes because they feared being labelled racist, Professor Alexis Jay found.
But a 2020 Home Office review found offenders come from diverse backgrounds. It said: ‘Research has found that group-based child $exual exploitation (CSE) offenders are most commonly white.
‘Some studies suggest an over-representation of Black and Asian offenders relative to the demographics of national populations.
‘However, it is not possible to conclude that this is representative of all group-based CSE offending.
A Home Office spokeswoman said: ‘The Home Secretary has been clear that all despicable child abusers must be brought to justice. And she will not shy away from telling hard truths, particularly when it comes to the grooming of young women and girls in Britain’s towns who have been failed by authorities over decades.
‘As the Home Secretary has said, the vast majority of British-Pakistanis are law-abiding, upstanding citizens but independent reports were unequivocal that in towns like Rochdale, Rotherham and Telford cultural sensitivities have meant thousands of young girls were abused under the noses of councils and police.
‘That’s why we have announced a raft of measures, including a new police taskforce and mandatory reporting, to ensure this horrific scandal can never happen again, and bring members of grooming gangs to justice for the victims.’
