McMahon, Phillips, Burnham: Three Politicians Who Must Answer For What They Did

Why the National Inquiry Must Drag All Three Under Oath

The National Inquiry will be worthless unless it drags named political actors into sworn testimony and forces them to explain their actions under oath. Jim McMahon, Jess Phillips, and Andy Burnham are just three examples from what are likely hundreds of politicians who made the same calculation.

I do not allege criminal guilt. I question political and moral responsibility and demand sworn examination, in public, under oath, with full cross-examination, to determine where legal responsibility lies and what consequences should follow.

All three have their fingerprints are all over this scandal. They've spent years dodging accountability while positioning themselves as the solution to problems they and their kind helped create.

These politicians didn't just fail to protect children. They actively participated in the mechanisms that silenced those demanding protection. They weaponised accusations of racism to shut down scrutiny. They designed processes to delay accountability until public attention moved elsewhere. They coordinated responses that prioritised political survival over child safety.

Now they present themselves as the champions of the very victims they helped to silence. They speak passionately about learning lessons whilst ensuring those lessons never threaten their own positions. They demand justice whilst working behind the scenes to ensure that justice stops short of their own conduct.

McMahon: Career Built On Silence While Children Were Raped

McMahon knew children were being taken from the streets and abused in shisha bars during his time as Oldham Council Leader. Pakistani networks operating from known locations across his borough. He had the power to issue public warnings, make statements in the council chamber, and demand emergency action from police and social services. Instead, McMahon chose silence.His defence, when it came, is an obscure blog post published well after when he first became aware of what was happening in the town he controlled.

As council leader, McMahon received briefings about the Pakistani Rape Gangs. He knew where the abuse was taking place, who was being targeted, and which communities were being systematically preyed upon. Yet he never once used his platform to warn parents that their daughters were being hunted by rape gangs.

McMahon's conduct raises unavoidable questions about whether electoral prospects outweighed child protection.

When campaigners demanded accountability for failures that enabled gangs to operate with impunity, McMahon's response was to smear them as racists and extremists. Anyone asking why Pakistani men could rape working class White girls without consequence got branded far-right and racist.

McMahon stayed silent about rape gangs, smeared anyone demanding answers, and waited for the problem to go away. The institutional reward was immediate. McMahon went straight from presiding over systematic child abuse to Parliament.

The inquiry must extract from McMahon exactly why silence was appropriate when children were being systematically abused in known locations across his borough. Why he chose to issue no public warnings to parents whose daughters were being hunted. Why his response to campaigners demanding accountability was character assassination rather than investigation.

McMahon must explain why protecting community relations was more important than protecting children from being gang raped and trafficked. Whether his electoral calculations outweighed his duty to safeguard working-class girls. And why his record of silence while children were being gang raped qualifies him for national office rather than referral for misconduct in public office.

Phillips: The Feminist Who Chose Votes Over White Girls

Phillips admits she knew about the abuse for over a decade. For fourteen years, Phillips stayed silent while children were being gang raped by Pakistani networks across multiple towns. Here was someone who built her entire political brand on being a voice for girls and women, yet when it came to Pakistani Rape Gangs systematically targeting White working-class girls, Phillips said nothing.

Phillips's fourteen-year silence, combined with her electoral strategy in Birmingham Yardley with its significant Muslim population, raises fundamental questions about whether constituency considerations trumped child protection.

She never spoke out about the gangs, never demanded action, never used her influence as a prominent feminist voice to force the issue into public view.

When pressure eventually mounted, Phillips decided the council involved in failing to safeguard children should investigate itself without any powers to investigate. When the scandal broke globally, Phillips tried to force through five separate, local, non-statutory inquiries. These fragmented processes were designed to dilute evidence and ensure no single investigation could build a comprehensive case.

Phillips's strategy was sophisticated. Five weak, non-statutory reviews meant no powers to compel testimony, no ability to force document disclosure, and no mechanism to demand cooperation from those who enabled the abuse. Five separate processes with no teeth meant five opportunities to control the narrative and limit scope. The time required to complete five fragmented inquiries would stretch across years, allowing public attention to dissipate and political pressure to fade. No single process could connect the dots between racial sensitivity and systematic failure to protect children, and crucially, none could force anyone to answer the questions that mattered.

When Phillips realised she couldn't prevent a national inquiry, she moved to control it by supporting the appointment of a Labour peer as chair.

The inquiry must extract from Phillips why someone who spent fourteen years choosing electoral support over children's protection should now control the quest for justice. Why her record of silence about rape gangs whilst positioning herself as a champion for girls qualifies her to oversee a process designed to expose the calculations she made. And why fourteen years of putting constituency politics before systematic child abuse makes her suitable to decide what questions can be asked now.

Burnham: Prime Ministerial Ambitions Built On Buried Evidence

Burnham commissioned review after review when the heat intensified across Greater Manchester. Each was carefully scoped to examine process instead of people, history instead of culpability. He created the appearance of action whilst ensuring nothing consequential would emerge.

At what point does commissioning review after review cease to be due process and become obstruction by delay?

Burnham launched a series of toothless reviews that took seven years to reach conclusions that should have been obvious from day one. Seven years whilst children continued to be abused. Seven years of bureaucratic theatre whilst rapists walked free and enablers kept their jobs.

The pattern suggests systematic delay designed to run down the clock until public attention moved elsewhere. When Burnham's own reviews finally confirmed what campaigners had been saying for years, that children were being gang raped whilst those paid to protect them looked the other way, Burnham sat on his hands.

His reports documented criminal failures by police officers, social workers, and council officials. Yet Burnham never called for a single prosecution, never demanded criminal investigations into those whose negligence facilitated rape, never used his platform to name those who failed children when it mattered.

The conduct raises stark questions about whether Burnham prioritised political management over criminal justice when presented with evidence of criminal conduct by public officials.

The inquiry must extract from Burnham exactly why seven years of toothless reviews sufficed when children were being systematically abused. Why he refused to escalate when evidence demanded it. And why, when his own processes confirmed organised child rape, he chose to protect the careers of those who enabled it rather than demand they face consequences.

The Racism Weapon: A Coordinated Political Doctrine

All three deployed an identical political mechanism that likely hundreds of politicians used across affected areas. The doctrine operated through repeatable steps:

• Brand critics as far-right, racist, conspiracy theorists, or liars
• Dismiss concerns without examination
• Ignore evidence without investigation
• Reject accountability demands without consequence.

When parents demanded to know why their daughters were being systematically targeted, politicians called them racists. When survivors came forward with testimony about organised abuse, politicians branded them liars. When campaigners presented evidence of institutional failures, politicians smeared them as extremists or conspiracy theorists.

The mechanism functioned perfectly. Once someone was branded racist or conspiracy theorist, their concerns could be dismissed without examination. The racism accusation became the ultimate conversation-stopper.

The beauty of the system was its simplicity and coordination. Rape gangs target children. Parents demand action. Politicians brand parents racist conspiracy theorists. Media ignores story. Campaigners are criminalised. Gangs continue operating. Politicians progress careers. Everyone wins except the children being gang raped and those that dared speak out.

This wasn't accidental. When scandals began breaking, politicians in Bradford, Halifax, Oldham, Rotherham, Telford and beyond reached for identical playbooks with identical timing. Labour politicians who had never spoken to each other developed identical responses to identical scandals. They all discovered simultaneously that the real problem wasn't rape gangs but the racist conspiracy theorists who complained about them.

The inquiry must examine how this doctrine was developed and distributed.

• Who decided that branding victims as liars was preferable to investigating their claims?
• Who calculated that calling parents racist fantasists was politically safer than protecting their children?
• Who coordinated the response that prioritised community relations over children's safety?

For years, the playbook functioned exactly as designed. It silenced victims, discredited campaigners, and protected politicians who chose electoral calculation over child protection. McMahon, Phillips, and Burnham, and hundreds like them, perfected a system that allowed rape gangs to operate with impunity whilst anyone demanding accountability faced character assassination.

The inquiry must force them to explain why they thought branding victims as liars was appropriate. Why they believed calling concerned parents racist fantasists would protect children. And why their coordinated campaign to silence truth through character assassination should be rewarded with continued political influence rather than investigation.

A Last Chance for Justice?

If McMahon, Phillips, Burnham and hundreds of politicians who made the same choices get to frame the terms and avoid cross-examination, then this inquiry becomes the final act of the cover-up. A grand theatrical performance designed to exhaust public anger whilst ensuring no one important faces consequences.

These politicians spent decades perfecting managed accountability: sympathetic chairs, restricted scope, no powers to compel testimony, carefully selected witnesses, predetermined conclusions blaming systems rather than individuals. They've turned inquiries into career rehabilitation exercises where those who enabled child rape emerge as champions of reform.

Not this time.

Victims don't need more sympathy or recommendations gathering dust on shelves. They need these politicians under oath, forced to explain their choices when children needed protection and they chose electoral calculation instead. They need cross-examination by counsel who understand this inquiry is the last chance for justice.

The stakes could not be clearer. If this inquiry allows McMahon, Phillips, and Burnham to control the narrative one more time, it confirms that the system rewards those who enable rape gangs. It tells every politician that staying silent whilst children are systematically abused is the smart career move. It guarantees that the next generation of grooming gangs will operate with the same impunity because they know politicians will choose votes over victims.

But if this inquiry drags these politicians into the dock and forces them to account for their choices under oath, it sends a different message. It tells politicians that enabling child rape has consequences. It shows gangs that their political protection has expired. It demonstrates to victims that their suffering finally matters more than political careers.

The inquiry must decide whether it wants to uncover truth or provide one last service to those who enabled this nightmare. Whether it will force accountability or facilitate the final cover-up. Whether it serves victims or politicians.

There's no middle ground left. Either this inquiry imposes real consequences on those who chose politics over child protection, or it confirms that rape gangs picked the right strategy when they relied on political cowardice to operate with impunity.

Politicians must be called to testify. This cannot be left to chance or interpretation. The terms of reference must explicitly confirm politicians as witnesses who will appear before the inquiry under oath. There can be no exceptions.

For too long, the political class has controlled the narrative around these scandals. They've positioned themselves as the solution whilst avoiding examination of their role in enabling the problem. They've managed every review, controlled every process, and shaped every conclusion. The pattern has held across towns and cities where children were systematically gang raped.

This inquiry represents the final opportunity to break that stranglehold. If politicians are allowed to remain in the shadows, offering guidance rather than testimony, controlling questions rather than answering them, then this inquiry will join the long list of exercises designed to exhaust anger rather than deliver justice.

The world is watching. International attention has finally focused on what politicians have spent decades trying to bury. The global scrutiny makes their usual management tactics impossible to deploy. They cannot brand international observers as racist. They cannot dismiss foreign media as far-right. They cannot criminalise campaigners operating from other countries.

Relentless local campaigning that forced global attention is the one thing that has forced this inquiry into existence. It is the pressure that politicians could not contain or control. And it is the force that must now ensure the inquiry has the courage to drag even would be Prime Ministers into the dock where they belong.

The choice for the National Inquiry is that simple. Justice or cover-up. Truth or theatre. Consequences or careers.

I’m Raja Miah. For seven years, I led a small team that exposed how politicians protected the rape gangs. Before that, I spent over a decade safeguarding children and protecting communities from extremists.

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– Raja Miah MBE