Former MP: "I Know the SICK Reason for the Grooming Gang Cover Up. I'll Expose the Politicians"

[Music] hello um welcome to show this week I'm Peter Whittle now I'm delighted that my guest this week is Simon danek who was indeed the MP for rdale for labor in 2010 through 2017 and uh now indeed uh he's with reform and indeed still in watch game for reform did you not I did in the B election in February last year that's right yeah um thanks for coming um you wrote a piece in the day mail this week which struck me because it was quite an overview of you know we're talking about these rape gangs

of course um you started as MP 2010 but um presumably you knew a bit about this before when did you know for first about the gangs when was the first that's a really good question uhi prior to 2010 when I became an MP in Rochdale I'd actually lived in Darwin near Blackburn which is about 15 miles away from rdale the reason I tell you that is I've been a counselor in uh Blackburn uh when I was 27 so several years before becoming an MP many years before and whil I was a counselor in Blackburn I

heard a rumor around that I represented a very white area I wasn't very uh involved in the local Authority but I had senior counselors talking about uh Asian Pakistani taxi drivers picking up young white girls from care homes in Blackburn and that was several years before the Rochdale grooming Scandal which broke in 2012 so I just heard a smidgen of it from from back then Jack straw was the MP for Blackburn at the time if you remember and he did make that point about pakistanis some Pakistani men seen these white girls as easy meat easy

me and was quite strong on the issue as was an CER and Keith so they they were before my time they had raised it initially and I'd heard a little bit about it but not very much right I mean are you uh here we are in 2025 um obviously we know Elon Musk and what Elon Musk has said has has blown the whole thing as it were internationally uh but are you surprised that people are only appreciating quite the extent of it now uh or not surprised there's no doubt about it this is a national

criminal justice Scandal of the size that we haven't seen in in any in many other years uh so I'm not surprised that people are coming back to it and saying what's gone on why has it been covered up why did we never take action that that always puzzled me so I'm I'm an MP I'm elected in 2010 uh 2012 this Scandal breaks only well because these perpetrators are in court and I get a phone call from journalists wanting a reaction and opinion I'm relatively new to the subject uh all hell breaks loose really in terms

of the subject and quite rightly people start to focus on it uh but it always puzzled me that very few parliamentarians would put their head above the parit and actually speak out on this issue yeah uh we mentioned Jack we mentioned an CER Sarah Champion spoke out she was a rotheram MP but many others didn't and some of the reason for that as I experienced is that as soon as the Scandal broke I said clearly ethnicity religion were factors in why these perpetrators attacked and abused these uh vulnerable white girls uh and it's not difficult

to realize that I mean the some of the comments that they made in court uh you know uh back that up uh but at the same time I had labor politicians saying to me me listen don't mention the ethnicity don't mention the religion it'll cost us votes it won't do you any good so the examples there are Jim Dobbin who was the neighboring MP to me in awood and Middleton uh sort of an older Statesman within the labor party been around many years and it is sort of a father figure he giving me advice and

we were at some Civic function because you know his his area and mine of C Terminus with the local Authority area and he said to me listen Simon you shouldn't make mention it won't do any good and that was his advice to me yes uh then uh we're approaching Prime min's questions just after the Scandal broke obviously I was going to raise a question with David Cameron at pmqs and more concerning Tony ly sidles up to me beforehand and he says to me uh Simon I'm going to ask a question on this uh on the

grooming gangs uh because uh I think it's important I don't think race is a factor and I don't think you should mention race it'll cost us votes now the reason he was asking a question on it because it wasn't his patch he was Manchester Central is because he was sha bought in because he was going for greater Manchester Police Commissioner right he was going to stand down as an MP and go for greater Manchester Police Commissioner and uh greater Manchester has a large ethnic minority vote and he was concerned that he would lose votes in

that uh in that process so so so he was and he said it in a debate in Westminster Hall later on that year so that it's on record that he didn't believe race and ethnicity were a factor I completely disagreed with that and I carried on saying what I thought had to be said and indeed from 2012 till about 2016 I campaigned very heavily uh on behalf of the victims of child abuse uh both relatively recently then but also historically in relation to sirel Smith and things I met G who prosecuted the case against uh

she was a key witness I met her and provided lots of support uh met a father and a family provided lots of casework support to the family and met a number of the other victims and campaign really strongly to try and get some action taken when you say that people were saying don't you know don't link it to this your religion it seems therefore that you it was a matter of pure expediency on their part I we don't want to lose Muslim votes yeah and uh you know it will affect multiculturalism we we've built up

these communities everybody's living relatively harmoniously and if you start talking about this in a particular way then relations will break down I took account of you actually my view was that if I don't as a labor MP if I don't talk about these issues then the void will get filled by the far right by the Tommy Robinson's by the English Defense League uh so I think it made sense to to be on the side of working people on the side of the victims and really call this out and get people in the Pakistani Community to

call it out instead of trying to brush it under the carpet but this is the this is one of the problems is that what people now say and I think it's very Justified is that there appear to be no voices from that Community even now sort of more or L saying we are discussed not in our name yeah I think that's right and I'll always recall that uh when I spoke up and spoke out on this issue back in 2012 a Labour party activist from the Pakistani Community wrote to the local Rotel Observer newspaper criticizing

me and effectively said listen remember who elected you the the the we are the Comm one of the communities that elected you if you don't shut up we won't keep voting for you that's effective what the letter said and there were people that clearly felt like that I mean the Dale Council and mosques were were my friends because I'd spoken up on this issue and they took the view that it should be covered open and that it wasn't a major issue for their Community but it was yes now in contrast and I always use uh

Peter Fay he was the chief Constable of Greater Manchester and in 2014 uh after he'd taken no real action on these issues in my view H I wrote a piece for the mail on Sunday this is back in 2014 saying he should be act now by this time Tony lyd is the police commissioner he wasn't having any of it uh but I'll never forget in in light of the 2012 Scandal uh Peter Fay came to uh Rochdale to a public meeting and the first word he said is I've come here to celebrate multiculturalism they're some

of the first words that he used to the audience and many people would have felt well it's multiculturalism that's got us in this mess in the first place yeah so I think he was a total failure on this issue I used to describe him more as a social worker than a a senior police officer and a bad social worker at that actually it's inter you mentioned the the fellow there who became Police Commissioner t l yeah um you know obviously therefore his attitude that he expressed to you before he was commissioner must have informed the

way he approached being commissioner surely oh yeah no absolutely that was his view yeah no we had stand up arguments about it after after he got the job uh it threatened me on the ph and all s it were Qui oh yes he hun you down or something yeah that's right yeah yeah no there's no doubt about that and and I in 2017 just for the record I wrote to the National inquiry that Professor J uh chaed that looked into a whole range of different kinds of child abuse uh not just this type uh uh

setting out quite clearly what both Jim Dobbin and Tony lyd had said to me and Tony was alive at the time he's passed away subsequently but he was alive in 2017 very much so and he would have been he would have known what I'd written about it yes and and recorded this yeah you mentioned there uh uh about multiculturalism um it seems to me that um apart from the expediency you know rail politic of wanting was both keeping that Narrative of a successful multiculture Society uh in place is one of the dominant motives for what

has been a massive cover I mean I I would say um Dennis mcshain who was in Ram wasn't he I'm not sure when he stopped being MP there labor MP but he later spoke about it and he said that I think his words were there was the feeling that we didn't want to rock the Multicultural boat so that was a wi spread feeling yeah yes within the labor party and within uh amongst politicians who represented these areas and then you've got local politicians as well who would be encouraging that view as well local counselors uh

some uh Pakistani counselors uh that would encourage it and leave it to us to sort out and let's keep a lid on it etc etc and that happened in Rochdale it particularly happened in rotheram um I sat on the Communist local government select committee and we had an inquiry into rotheram and what had gone gone on there uh Professor Jay before she did the national inquiry had done a localized inquiry into rotheram and quite clearly identified that local politicians had played a part in the cover up yes that's her report into the local situation in

rotheram and I called at the time for sea Wright he was the labor Police Commissioner for South Yorkshire for for him to resign because before he' been Police Commissioner it'd been Cabinet member in uh in Rother and and uh not really called out this type of abuse yes um nobody but nobody has been prosecuted for anything have they no in terms of the coverup certainly not no everybody's gone on I got the uh chief executive Roger Alice called before the home Affairs select committee it clearly failed he he he said he knew nothing about it

yet he was the chairman of the Safeguard board in Rochdale I mean that's just one example many officers uh Council officers many senior uh police figures never lost a penny have gone off into into retirement happily uh and I think the public want want that to be addressed more than anything as well as the perpetrators obviously you you became uh to say um MP Ro in 2010 but as I understand it like a few years before that um Katie Hopkins came and said a few things about and linked it directly with Pakistani managing and you

weren't happy with that at all where you no that's a really interesting question cuz I get this on social media as you do yeah and so it was whilst I was an MP and uh this is my recollection vague recollection but uh I would I was putting the Pakistan flag up to celebrate Pakistan Independence Day H now we put a Ukraine flag up we put up lots of different flags in Rochdale outside the town H for lots of different reasons because it's it's quite a multicultural it's quite a diverse Community as so we certainly put

the Pakistan flag up and I I'm happy to do that and then she made some remark on social media uh linking me who standing with these pakistanis to to uh rape gangs well it was just nonsensical to make the the connection because obviously not all Pakistani men belong to a rape gang and she was quite deliberately making some sort of connection there and it was highly explosive to to make that connection and you've got to remember the context we had edl marches and rallies as a consequence of the Scandal uh throughout Roch day yeah so

it was sensitive and whilst uh I'm tough on clamping down and uh challenging people who covered up the rape gangs I don't think we should lump everybody together in in almost a racist way and so she was challenged by the police the police challenged her on on what she put on social media I think justifiably in my opinion yeah I well I think the thing is when you know shouldn't lump people all together I think one of the problems I'm is that with uh say like uh it is a white pedophile or your civil civil

Smith or whoever it might be when they go come out of jail or whatever it might be they pretty much are shunned but what appears to be one of the traits in the Pakistani Muslim Community is um the people actually just go back into that community and they appear to be accepted they don't they're certainly not sunned I mean we've heard cases where you know you're talking about if you're talking about that many people then surely there were big family networks that must have known that their men folk were doing it oh I think there's

no day to about it that there will be people that knew it was happening but I I mean I think K Hopkins is a distraction in all of this I don't think she helps us get where we need to be in terms of Prosecuting the perpetrators or Prosecuting or taking against the people that covered it up uh I just don't think her role in it is particularly helpful and she clearly has an agenda and I presume she estimate money and perhaps that's part of it and I get that that's fine but but you're exactly right

uh in terms of the community accepting what's gone on and challenging it and this education that's required uh in that Community to say this is not acceptable and that it should be called out I completely agree with you uh but but yeah again we can't lump everybody together there were people in that community that would call it out as well you know you say the education needed um one of the problems surely with multiculturalism I I put forward is that you can't educate people because that would be to implicitly criticize their culture or make them

change their culture and the whole point of M cm is to celebrate all cultures equally isn't it yeah I think it is and well I think we have to have a different approach to it I don't think multiculturalism's worked I think people should be integrated much more than they have been I think we can still do it I don't think it's too late but it's more challenging how would we do it do you think well I think we have to uh people have to learn English as an as an obvious example I think they have

to buy into our cultures I think we have to accept that it's a Christian country I think that should be promoted more uh this is very much a Christian Country and this idea that you know uh that we have to give uh people from particular minorities certain St protection in some ways itic characteristics that's it uh I just don't think that works I think it becomes counterproductive so we have to really radically change our philosophy in terms of how we approach this in the immediate right now uh in fact actually just before we started recording

this um the Home Secretary vet Cooper has made some form of statement which what it amounts to without going into all the detail is that there's no National inquiry that's been announced right what's your view what should happen do you think or that there should be a national inquiry and what kind or do you think actually we've had too many inquiries we don't need another one well I think what she's name proposing are localized inquiries and I don't think they work at all uh they can't compel people to come and give evidence uh they have

limited resources even if they put a bit of money into it and it's local areas marking their own homework you wouldn't rely on some of these local authorities to really reach strong conclusions in terms of senior officers and stuff so that I just don't think localized inquiries work at all I think we need a national inquiry it doesn't have to go like what other inquiries have gone before so St says oil at three or four years it could to no it doesn't have to it's nonsense and you can be prosecut perpetrators at the same time

you can be doing more than one thing at once most people can perhaps not Kia stall but so it doesn't have to be like what he describes that's a red herring the other inquiry that Professor Jay has already done uh was a very broad brush looked at a whole range of different kind of abuse of children quite rightly and reached some strong conclusions and recommendations which should be implemented like the mandatory reporting this inquiry can be much smarter sharper shorter to the point and result in making recommendations for Action to be taken uh not just

against the perpetrators but that's being done anyway it should be being done by the police uh but by those that covered it up that's what the public are most angry about in all of this is those people who covered it up and the fact that they haven't answered for it and that's what the inquiry should do also inquires can subpoena people can't they absolutely yeah I mean they it would have to have that power and you could have the whole thing done in six or nine months couldn't you yes absolutely with the right chairperson with

the right direction the right terms of reference uh and I wouldn't rely on the Home Secretary or kia St to drop the terms of reference it'd have to be more independent yes people have had enough of this yes and politics is in a very different place to what it was uh even just five six 10 years ago uh when when when the national inquiry was set up people want action they determined to get action and you know things have changed radically so I think they want to smart more efficient inquiry yeah um I believe tell

me if I'm wrong you're in reform now I believe reform have announced that they would do one they are they've talked about you're you're right they've talked about uh fundraising and and doing it independently how effective that will be I'm I'm not surea yeah I think probably not I think it needs to com directly from the good government as it power um I say I was going to say quite a journey for labor to before but actually not really necessarily I me I was in ID for a long time and there were a lot of

there was more of a natural uh Journey for many people from labor or left into things like brexit and ukip and and what have you um why did you go to reform well a number of reasons really I I was I would always have put myself on the traditional rightwing within the labor party so tough on uh immigration tough on benefit claimants who are not getting into work tough on Law and Order so I was always on that wing of the party and and L you know I came into the uh parliamentary labor party at

the wrong time I come in in 2010 we end up we had Miller Band uh if that's not bad enough and it's bad we then have Jeremy Corbin for a couple of terms and then it comes out the other side we Kia starmer H so I left the party in 2017 I mean it wasn't my kind of labor party so on any of those types of issues I mean look at and I feel more strongly now than ever illegal immigration people coming over in boats absolutely outragous I feel very strongly about that but the multiculturalism

issue uh pleasing and disorder we talk about London and you know I live mainly in London now I mean it feels unsafe more unsafe than it did 10 years ago uh so on a whole range of issues I think reform are calling it out calling it right and the two main parties uh I mean the conservatives have done some stuff right but they nowhere near in the right place uh this uni party as people talk about both fighting over the center ground and I don't think that's even where the public are at never mind me

you you mentioned that that you're living in London how long have you been living in now 10 years 10 10 years now um just actually to go back to the the rape gangs uh this question's been asked and I remember I brought it up when I was in the assembly actually London appears not to figure what 50 towns we have 50 towns and cities so far I'm sure there'll be more where this has gone on some pretty leafy places too like Oxford actually some of the worst abuse was in Oxford London appears not to have

had it why would you think that that would be I think that's a really interesting question which I've had conversations about over the last few weeks actually and I don't have any definitive answer I think the ethnic makeup is much more complex so if you take Tower hamlets very Bangladeshi very high number of bangladeshis that particular group tend not to get involved in this type of abuse there aren't lots of Bangladeshi people with that background involved in this at all quite the contrary so it's a particular strain of people uh pakistanis who have a very

perhaps a more strong religious belief uh Islamic belief than some others from from that religion uh and so the ethnicity is very different and the makeup of towns and and Buras around London is radically different to those closed communities that you get in Rotherham that you get in Rochdale Pakistani communities within uh one or two square miles living in terorist housing keeping themselves to the cells operating in this Twilight uh economy even in economy ju just feeling able to do what they've done and just radically different from the more Cosmopolitan London that we see yes

I I I can see that I suppose what it was entirely without data was my hunch was that basically there there is no white working class left in London in the nor way because in many of like watch places you've got the kind of residual structure haven't you there from before when they were large industrial towns but in London um I I wouldn't I can't think of an area actually I mean you you mentioned the East End I mean white working class long ago left uh the East end but it's pretty much the case for

all of London yeah and actually the geography of it I think is really important and if you go back to what I was talking about you've got Rochdale and then hawood and Middleton these two constituencies me and Jim Dobbin and the C Terminus with Rochdale burough and the pakist the this is going back 10 15 years the Pakistani Community very much in Rochdale not in hawood and Middleton so what you add there is the perpetrators coming from my constituency and the victims predominantly living in Haywood and Middleton on poor white working class Council EST dayss

uh some of these perpetrators working in takeaways taxes you know they don't know the boundaries of constituents or anything else operating in and around Airwood of Middleton and abusing some of uh Jim dobbin's constituents and ironically he did very little he used to course long as an MP uh not doing very much and I ended up having which I shouldn't have done helping the victims doing the casew work for his victims because he he wasn't doing it but I mean that's another story in itself but that's the geography of these things it's really important it's

it's important um you know whatever the the geography might be there one thing I think you pointed it out is certainly something which I think is an enormous part of it is the sheer snowy involved in the attitudes to these girls that went right across and still does the establishment you know that basically they're not worth it I mean do you did you recognize that whilst you were an MP and like now yeah absolutely so we we've we've talked about uh race and uh religion being a factor uh Multicultural ISM and you know not wanting

to rock the multiculturalism bo but also uh people across communities the white Community the middle class uh and in Professional Services Public Services uh taken a derogatory view of the of the of the girls and that uh they were making lifestyle choices or they with prostitutes I mean we all know that children can't be prostitutes but nevertheless then we're going back 15 years there were seen as uh prostitutes and they they were you know they were going along with it so they had a very poor view but I at the point so the grooming Scandal

broke the Rochdale uh rape gang Scandal broke in May 2012 I there was a debate in Parliament in November 2012 and Ia about child abuse and coffee had initiated it this Stockport MP and uh I split the speech in two parts the first half was about the Rochdale rip gangs and and the young girls and then the second half I outed sirel Smith uh who' been the MP for Rochdale from 1972 to 1992 and talked about how he had uh he was a pedophile he had abused young boys and I made the point that uh

the the girls got abused because they were what poor white working class girls ignored and his victims Smith's victims got ignored because they were poor white workingclass boys and so from 70 well 8 was abusing from the 50s onwards uh and these victims were just ignored and ignored because they were from broken families as we go and one parent families and he was very careful his M oper andai were to pick on particular uh partic particular boys to abuse that were from broken arms Etc and they were just ignored they weren't believed and and fast

forward the idea that this goes away uh stops happening is just not the case as we've seen there yeah um finally actually related to this point one thing that's become quite clear over the past few weeks want to say clear I mean in a popular way you know the public whereare was to sheare a racial element in this that you know we've seen the transcripts now and comments made by some of the perpetrators you know about uh the white white girls being just less and kind of scum in the street um the superiority of being

a Muslim all this so in other words it was probably the biggest racially aggravated crime that we've seen in this country yes absolutely and that there's the irony isn't it that this multiculturalism agenda says we shouldn't raise it or challenge it because of multiculturalism culturalism and yet the uh the perpetrators are the most racist of all aren't they the the people committing these crimes are being exceptionally racist against these white poor white girls and yet we don't call that out or or that's you know that's covered up I mean it's appalling I struggle to you

talk about the statements I I struggle to read them nowadays actually yes I think sort of it's one of those things isn't it they could be made public I think it's very expensive but I mean they are in the public Arena it cost a lot of money to get them but um you know they are so upsetting and I but I think people have got to see and read quite what these girls went through absolutely um what's the future few with reform Are you standing again an election when it comes or what I I haven't

reached any conclusions on that and the leadership of the party would make a decision on that as I would with my wife I stood in the rdale by elction we got death threats and all sorts of a serious nature which are being prosecuted hopefully by the police uh that was quite surprising to my wife she she didn't like the whole the whole of that uh so we have a decision to make but uh but it's possible I don't rule it out I don't rule it in yeah well look um can you stay with us actually

because we're going to ask you a few questions for our our members um but and the metime thanks very much for joining me today thank you very much uh Simon danek uh we shall uh see you next week have a good week in the meantime won't you hello if you're enjoying the new culture Forum Channel and you believe in our mission may I invite you to join our membership scheme at the link below or on our website new culture forum.org do.uk our work is more important now than ever and we have great plans ahead for

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