WHO REALLY CHOSE THE TOWNS IN THE GROOMING GANGS INQUIRY?
LONGFIELD HAS SELECTED NOTHING. EVERY TOWN AND CITY IN THE RAPE GANG INQUIRY WAS FORCED ON HER.
Baroness Longfield told the public she would choose her places by published criteria. She published those criteria on 24 June 2026 and named Bradford and London in the same announcement, so the public was shown the test and the result on the same day.
London had written to her six days earlier. Bradford had a full council due to vote on it six hours later.
She selected none of the places on her list.
Oldham was forced on her by a town that beat the Government, Bradford by its council, London by its own Assembly, Wales by a sentencing in Rhyl and a fight in the Senedd, and Birmingham by three signatures and a record that could no longer be hidden.
Baroness Longfield and her inquiry team have not gone to one town that nobody was shouting about. Calderdale, Kirklees, Hull, Blackpool and Telford were not on her list on 30 September 2026. Each had seen political demands for inclusion or correspondence seeking it, but Longfield named none of them.
The National Inquiry's selection criteria is a deceit. They carry no weighting, no threshold and no comparison between one place and another, and her own document says no single factor decides.
Longfield cannot explain why Bradford is in and Calderdale is out, when the two councils sit side by side under the same police force and both have men in prison for raping children.
The selection criteria tells Longfield she may choose Bradford. They do not tell the public why. This is already a cover up.
OLDHAM WAS ON THE LIST BEFORE LONGFIELD HAD A LIST
Longfield did not choose Oldham either. Oldham Council voted down requests for an inquiry from 2020 to 2024, and in October 2024 Jess Phillips, as Safeguarding Minister, told the town it could not have a government inquiry into the rape of its own children. The people of Oldham refused her answer, and on 12 February 2025 the full council voted unanimously to demand a statutory public inquiry with the power to compel witnesses.
The Government that had refused Oldham gave way in June 2025 and conceded a national inquiry. When Longfield was appointed on 9 December 2025, the Government's own announcement said her local investigations would include Oldham. Her criteria did not exist for another six months, and she was handed Oldham by a town that refused to be quiet.
BRADFORD WAS SIX HOURS FROM A VOTE AND LONDON HAD WRITTEN SIX DAYS BEFORE
The two places she added on 24 June 2026 were forced on her as Oldham was. Stephen Place wrote to her on 21 May 2026 as the new leader of Bradford Council, and she wrote back that the first areas would be published by 13 July 2026. I said at the time that a leader's letter carries no institutional weight, and her reply proved it.
The Conservative group then requisitioned an extraordinary meeting of the full council for four o'clock on 24 June 2026, with one motion on the agenda demanding Bradford's inclusion. Longfield rushed her announcement out six hours before the councillors sat down, weeks ahead of the date she had given Place. I believe she moved because a council was about to put its demand on the public record, and she wanted the decision to look like hers.
London went in on the same day and by the same route. The London Assembly had passed a motion on 26 February 2026 demanding a dedicated London module, its Police and Crime Committee had opened its own investigation into the rape gangs in the capital, and the committee's letter calling for London to be investigated was published on 18 June 2026.
Longfield named London six days later, and the committee welcomed it "particularly as" it had written to ask for it.
She gave London's scale and complexity as her reason, as though London had been a smaller city on 9 December 2025, when Oldham was the only place she had agreed to.
FIVE DAYS AFTER RHYL LONGFIELD ANNOUNCED AN ENTIRE COUNTRY
Three months after Bradford and London she stopped naming towns. On 30 September 2026 she announced a Wales investigation, and her own announcement said the scope and the areas of interest had not been decided. Her documents list it apart from her local investigations, because it is a nation with no town in it.
She announced it five days after five people were sentenced at Caernarfon Crown Court for the trafficking and rape of girls in Rhyl, and two weeks after the Senedd had fought over the inquiry on 16 September 2026. Reform had asked the wrong government, the Senedd had voted the demand down, and the Welsh Conservatives' call for a separate Welsh inquiry had been defeated with it.
Longfield gave Wales a headline and left Rhyl, the Welsh town where those girls were raped, off her list.
BIRMINGHAM HAD THREE SIGNATURES AND A RECORD THAT COULD NOT BE HIDDEN
Birmingham was announced on the same day as Wales. It is the one place on her list where no chamber was about to vote, and it went in under the same pressure.
Raja Miah
Birmingham City Council has known since 1991, when Dr Jill Jesson's research into the abuse of girls in its own care was kept from publication. Its councillors voted down a motion in December 1995 demanding an inquiry into that suppression. West Midlands Police had a document in March 2015 that identified more than 700 children at risk and 372 suspects, compared Birmingham directly to Rotherham, and was not published.
I published that record in March 2026. Robert Alden, the Conservative group leader, wrote to Longfield in June 2026, and a cross-party letter was sent to every Birmingham MP and every group leader on the council on 22 June 2026 and again on 25 June 2026. Three people signed it, and they were Alden, Sir Andrew Mitchell and Jess Phillips.
The rest of Birmingham's politicians did not answer or would not sign.
Phillips had resigned as Safeguarding Minister in May 2026, and she is the same Jess Phillips who told Oldham it could not have an inquiry into the rape of its children. A letter from a former Safeguarding Minister about her own city cannot be thanked and filed, and Longfield named Birmingham on 30 September 2026.
Longfield gave survivor experience, prevalence, harm and public concern as her reasons. The survivors, the prevalence and the harm were on the record in 2015, and they were on the record on 24 June 2026 when she left Birmingham out. On the public record, the concern is the only one of the four that had changed.
THIS CAMPAIGN HAS ONLY JUST STARTED
For years, I have campaigned to force the rape of our children out of the files, reviews and back rooms where institutions wanted it left. Oldham now has a statutory national inquiry. Bradford, London, Birmingham and Wales have been dragged onto its agenda. And we are not stopping there.
I am now turning that same pressure onto the National Inquiry itself.
I want Calderdale, Kirklees, Blackpool, Hull, Telford and every other town with unanswered questions put in front of Baroness Longfield. I want councils forced to vote. I want councillors forced to put their names on the record. And I want Longfield forced to explain publicly why one town gets the powers of a statutory inquiry while another is left outside.
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CALDERDALE AND KIRKLEES WROTE LETTERS AND WERE LEFT OUT
All five had been pushed in front of her. Calderdale and Kirklees asked without pushing, and what they got shows what a letter is worth.
Dan Sutherland leads Calderdale Council with an outright Reform majority, in a borough where more than fifty men have been convicted of raping children. He wrote Longfield a letter in May 2026, the same month Place wrote from Bradford next door, and he called no meeting and no vote. She welcomed his offer of support, recognised the strength of feeling, and left Calderdale out on 24 June 2026 and again on 30 September 2026.
Sarah Wood leads Kirklees Council for Reform UK. She told its annual meeting on 20 May 2026 that she did not know what an amendment was. Longfield's inquiry had already been in touch with the council to arrange a visit to meet survivors when Wood wrote on 14 August 2026 promising full cooperation. Longfield replied that Kirklees had not been ruled out, and Kirklees was offered a visit and given no investigation.
Hull's council held a vote in July 2026 and used it to ask its leader to write a letter. Blackpool's Labour council wrote to the Government, which does not choose the places, and Telford's Labour leader wrote and saw Telford put into a review of old recommendations. None of the three was on her list on 30 September 2026.
The letter is how a council avoids the vote. A leader gets to tell the town they asked, their councillors are spared putting their names to a demand, and Longfield gets to say thank you and name nobody.
Reform lead both Calderdale and Kirklees and were elected to end the cover-up. Using that power to write letters is cowardice. They should be calling extraordinary council meetings and forcing a vote where the demand to Longfield is that their town is investigated.
LONGFIELD CANNOT NAME ONE PLACE SHE FOUND FOR HERSELF
Longfield's own criteria say she weighs the level of public concern when she decides where to investigate. She has put it in writing that the towns making the most noise go to the front of the queue. The girls raped in a town with no campaign and no council willing to vote go to the back of it. That is her rule.
Longfield cannot name one place her inquiry found for itself. Which is why she must publish the date on which her panel decided on each of the five, what was in front of it when it did, and every representation she received.
She must publish her reasons for leaving Calderdale, Kirklees, Hull, Blackpool and Telford outside her investigations.
Until she publishes the decision making behind her selection criteria, the public has only her word that she follows the evidence.
An inquiry that waits to be pushed has abandoned the girls nobody is pushing for. The girls raped in Halifax, Dewsbury, Batley, Telford and Rhyl were failed by councils and police forces that have not been made to answer under oath, and a council leader's letter has not got them one hearing.
PART 2 SETS OUT HOW A TOWN FORCES ITS WAY IN
The public record shows pressure preceding every place Longfield has named. Part 2 sets out how a council outside the list applies it. Part 3 names the councils with the evidence, the votes and no excuse.
My name is Raja Miah MBE. For eight years I have exposed how politicians, police and public bodies failed working class White girls who were systematically raped by Pakistani grooming gangs. Together, with the support of the people of Oldham, we forced the Government to concede a National Statutory Inquiry after years of resistance.
Children gang raped, communities betrayed, politicians and police officers involved protected, and you expected to shake your head and carry on as if nothing more can be done because lessons have been learned.
For eight years, I have refused. The police repeatedly dawn raided my home and falsified evidence to try and silence me. The newspapers smeared me. And Pakistani gangsters, under the protection of Labour politicians, followed me home. Islamists openly incited my murder.
Blacklisted by the mainstream media, only your support makes it possible for me to keep exposing the truth those in power want buried.
They sold children for votes and sacrificed entire towns and cities at their altar of multiculturalism. I help you make sense of it. And I help you fight back.
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Raja Miah MBE