It really shouldn’t be necessary, but it appears that some on the left - and complacent, wet centrists - need a lesson in why the rape gang scandal is so important, and why it is not simply a shameful chapter from the past. For the rest of us, there are also lessons about what the modern left has become, and how progressive left-wing thinking and elitist snobbery helped enable the horrors that we have all read about. The rape of vulnerable children across the country by men from different cultures, who in some cases operated with racist attitudes towards their victims, is not just a heinous outrage. It also raises profoundly uncomfortable questions about immigration, integration and multiculturalism. These men targeted, exploited, groomed and raped children. Children who had already had extremely difficult lives. Children from care homes. Children from tough backgrounds. Children who were vulnerable and easy to exploit. And these crimes were enabled by a culture in which modern left-wing thinking had made it extremely difficult to point the finger at particular communities without the risk of being accused of racism, a serious charge that could have implications for careers and livelihoods. As far back as 2003, Labour MP Ann Cryer was raising the alarm about the sexual exploitation of young girls by groups of older men from the Pakistani community in her Keighley constituency. According to her son, former Labour MP John Cryer, who now sits in the House of Lords, she was then smeared and attacked as a racist, particularly by figures in her own party. She received threatening calls and notes, and police installed a panic alarm in her home. In 2017, Sarah Champion, the Labour MP for Rotherham, highlighted the issue, writing that Britain had a problem with British Pakistani men raping and exploiting white girls. She subsequently distanced herself from the wording and resigned from Labour’s front bench amid the backlash. Even as recently as May 2025, Lucy Powell, then Leader of the House of Commons and a member of the Labour government, reacted to the grooming-gangs scandal being raised on Radio 4’s 𝘈𝘯𝘺 𝘘𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴? by saying: “Oh, we want to blow that little trumpet now, do we? Yeah, OK, let’s get that dog whistle out.” Powell is now Secretary of State for Education and remains at the heart of government. And this is how parts of the left too often see this unspeakable pattern of crimes. Highlighting it undermines their agenda, undermines the narrative that multiculturalism is working beautifully and strengthening our nation when, in some instances, it is doing the very opposite. Some people within certain communities have produced the worst sort of criminals. But too often the instinct on the left has been to minimise, deflect or avoid discussing that fact because of where it leads politically. And as Rory Stewart showed in his dismal comments during a recent interview with 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘰𝘳, a man who supposedly comes from the Conservative tradition can share much the same worldview. Stewart argued that the grooming-gangs debate was being conducted in “bad faith” and that culture-war arguments about it distract from Britain’s bigger problems. That sort of dismissal is exactly the problem. Among sections of the political and media class, racist crime and misogynistic sexual offences seem to matter a great deal less when the perpetrators are not white. Look at the absurd reaction to 𝘈𝘥𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 - a fictional Netflix drama received more attention from some politicians than real-life sexual crimes against vulnerable girls. There are no doubt vulnerable girls being raped today. There are still cases involving organised child sexual exploitation going through the courts, and there has not been justice for everyone affected. Rory Stewart doesn’t like people “banging on” about it. I would suggest we all bang on about it louder and louder until there is real accountability and real justice.