Why The Grooming Gang Inquiry Looks Like A Stitch-Up

Blair Insider to Starmer Grandee: A Quarter-Century Inside Labour's Protection Racket

This is not an inquiry. It is a protection racket.

Anne Longfield is not an independent outsider drafted in to confront power. She is a Labour grandee whose quarter-century career runs in an unbroken line from Tony Blair's Downing Street to Keir Starmer's grooming gangs inquiry. She has never been outside the machine that created this scandal. She has never challenged the institutions that covered it up. She has never even named the crime.

While Pakistani rape gangs were operating across Labour-controlled towns, Longfield was inside No.10 helping design Blair's flagship children's programme. She later ran a charity that collapsed into administration. She then took over the Children's Commissioner's Office at precisely the point it had already helped sanitise the grooming gangs scandal. Instead of dismantling that narrative, she endorsed it. She has since built a public identity around anti-racism and "racial inclusion", while never once speaking plainly about Pakistani-heritage grooming gangs. As Children's Commissioner, she was formally criticised for abusing her powers and misusing public money.

This is the person appointed to lead the national "reckoning". She was not chosen despite these conflicts. She was chosen because of them.

The Structural Capture: Never Outside the System

Longfield's relationship with Labour is not incidental. It is structural.

In the early 2000s she was not a charity campaigner lobbying from the outside. She was seconded into the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit, embedded inside Tony Blair's Downing Street, helping shape the children's and early-years agenda, including Sure Start. This was the heart of New Labour policymaking. Not activism, not independence, but state power.

New Labour's defining instinct was always the same: manage risk, avoid destabilising truths, and wrap everything in the language of care while keeping politics firmly under control. That is the culture Longfield was formed in.

After leaving No.10, she moved into running 4Children, an organisation tightly aligned with Labour's early-years strategy. MPs were cultivated, government contracts flowed, and the charity became part of the extended machinery of the state. It looked independent, but it was anything but.

From there, she stepped into one of the most sensitive roles in the system: Children's Commissioner for England. That is a Crown appointment, but nobody seriously believes it is detached from government. She took over an office whose work on grooming gangs had already been used to reassure ministers and councils that ethnicity was a "distraction", that Pakistani perpetrators should be folded into a race-neutral story about "CSE in gangs and groups".

She didn't challenge that work. She embraced it. That's not a break with her past. It's continuity.

And then, in 2025, the circle closed. Longfield was ennobled as Baroness Longfield, a Labour peer in the House of Lords. Months later, she was handed the grooming gangs inquiry. We are told she will "relinquish the whip" while chairing it, as though that somehow erases two decades of ideological alignment and institutional loyalty.

It doesn't.

4Children: How She Destroys What She's Meant to Protect

Before anyone talks about her suitability to run a £65m inquiry, they should look honestly at her record of leadership.

At 4Children, Longfield oversaw rapid and aggressive expansion. The charity grew from a small operation into a national organisation with around 1,500 staff. Contracts multiplied. Exposure grew. Growth became the measure of success.

Then, in 2016, not long after Longfield left to become Children's Commissioner, 4Children collapsed into administration.

Staff were laid off. Services disappeared overnight. Vulnerable families were left in limbo. Sector analysis pointed to familiar problems: over-expansion, weak reserves, poor risk management, and dependence on government contracts.

If she could not steward a large children's charity without driving it into collapse, there is no serious case for trusting her with a national inquiry that may represent the final opportunity for accountability.

How She Endorsed the Grooming Gangs Whitewash

When Longfield became Children's Commissioner in 2015, she inherited an institution already implicated in the grooming gangs scandal. Not by silence, but by narrative.

Under her predecessor, with Sue Berelowitz as Deputy Commissioner, the Office had produced the Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Gangs and Groups. Those reports did something deeply consequential: they dissolved Pakistani-heritage grooming gangs into an abstract, race-neutral category.

What victims and frontline workers knew to be organised networks of Pakistani men targeting White girls was rebranded as generic "CSE in gangs and groups". Ethnicity was blurred. Culture was avoided. The defining feature of the crime was made unspeakable.

When challenged in 2012, Berelowitz defended the report publicly. The Office stood behind it. That work then sat on desks across policing, local government, and Whitehall, providing exactly the cover institutions wanted: the experts say you can't talk about ethnicity.

This is the organisation Longfield chose to lead.

She could have reopened that work after Rotherham. She could have acknowledged that the framing was wrong. She could have said that the Children's Commissioner's Office had failed victims.

She didn't.

When Berelowitz left the Office in May 2015, the official statement issued under Longfield's leadership said the organisation was "proud of the work done by the inquiry into the sexual exploitation of children in gangs and groups which Sue led".

Proud.

That was not neutrality. It was ownership.

Breaking Rules to Protect the Cover-Up Artist

And endorsement was not the end of it.

After removing Sue Berelowitz from her formal role, Longfield rehired her as a consultant. The same individual who authored and defended the whitewashed inquiry was brought back on a day rate of up to £960 to continue working on child sexual abuse.

This was not handled transparently.

The Treasury approved Berelowitz's enhanced severance payment on the understanding that she was leaving. It was not informed that she would be immediately rehired. Required approvals were not secured. Payments were routed through a private company.

When the Department for Education later reviewed the arrangement, it ruled that it breached government rules. The contract was cancelled and public money was repaid.

This sequence matters.

Longfield did not merely inherit a compromised narrative. She endorsed it. She protected its architect. She broke the rules to keep that person in place. That tells you far more about her instincts than any mission statement ever could.

Six Years of Never Saying 'Pakistani Rape Gangs'

As Children's Commissioner, Longfield spoke at length about "vulnerable children", "exploitation", "gangs", and "safeguarding". She talked about online abuse, system failures, and prevention.

What she did not do was name the crime.

She did not talk about Pakistani rape gangs. She did not acknowledge the organised model of abuse. She did not confront the fear of racism allegations that paralysed police and councils.

Her vocabulary was always managerial, always abstract, always safe. That is not how you challenge a cover-up. It is how you maintain one.

The Anti-Racism Industry That Silenced Victims

Since leaving office, Longfield has leaned heavily into anti-racism and "racial inclusion" as her public cause.

As recently as October 2025, she was urging the Department for Education to make anti-racism a central priority. She warned about Black children feeling "over-policed" and framed British institutions as structurally biased against minorities.

Set that beside the reality of the grooming gangs scandal.

This was a scandal defined by institutions bending over backwards to avoid being called racist, even as minority perpetrators raped girls with impunity. Anti-racism was not absent; it was weaponised.

Someone whose professional identity depends on locating racism against minorities in every institution is now being asked to lead an inquiry into a crime where that same ideological reflex silenced victims.

That is not neutrality. It is conflict built into the role.

The State Investigating Itself: The Final Betrayal

Survivors did not ask for reassurance. They did not ask for safeguarding seminars or carefully worded reports.

They asked for independence. They asked for truth. They asked for a judge. What they received was Anne Longfield.

A Blair-era insider turned Labour peer. A woman who endorsed the grooming gangs whitewash. A woman who rehired its architect after praising her work. A woman who speaks about exploitation while refusing to name the perpetrators. A woman whose politics rest on the same anti-racist orthodoxy that paralysed the state.

This appointment is not incompetence. It is design.

She has been chosen because she understands the limits of acceptable truth. She knows how to turn criminal betrayal into "systemic failure". She knows how to deliver closure for institutions without delivering justice for victims.

This inquiry will not fail by accident. It will succeed exactly as intended. It will generate volume, not accountability. Process, not justice. Relief for the state, not resolution for survivors. And when the final report lands, the public will be told the matter is settled.

It won't be.

If this inquiry proceeds under Anne Longfield, the grooming gangs scandal will not end in justice. It will end in administrative burial.

The system failed these girls. Then it denied it. Then it rephrased it. Now it is investigating itself.

That is not accountability. It is the final act of the cover-up. And the question is no longer whether the truth exists. The question is whether anyone is still willing to stop it being buried again.

What Justice Actually Requires

If this inquiry is to have any legitimacy at all, the current arrangement cannot stand.

That is not rhetoric. It is a basic requirement of justice. At a minimum, the following must happen.

1. Anne Longfield Must Be Removed as Chair

There is no scenario in which a Labour peer, former Children's Commissioner, and long-term policy insider can credibly investigate a scandal that implicates Labour councils, Labour ministers, police forces, and national safeguarding bodies.

Standing down from the whip is meaningless. The conflict is not procedural. It is institutional and ideological.

The chair must be someone who has never been part of the safeguarding establishment that failed these girls.

2. The Inquiry Must Be Judge-Led

This inquiry must be chaired by a senior judge or retired judge with experience in criminal law, evidence, and public accountability.

Not a "children's champion". Not a policy campaigner. Not a peer.

A judge brings three things this process desperately needs: independence from politics, a forensic approach to evidence, and the authority to compel uncomfortable truth.

Anything less is window dressing.

3. The Full Cultural Pattern Must Be Examined, Not Just "Ethnicity"

The Terms of Reference mention ethnicity, but what has been carefully excluded is any reference to the biraderi clan system that underpins these crimes.

The inquiry must examine Pakistani biraderi networks, how clan loyalties operate in British communities, and how local politicians have strengthened rather than challenged these power structures for electoral advantage.

This cannot be reduced to statistical analysis of "ethnicity". It requires understanding how imported tribal systems create untouchable criminal networks.

But here is the deeper problem: can someone whose entire professional identity depends on finding racism against minorities be trusted to examine crimes committed by minorities? Longfield's ideology makes honest investigation impossible even if the scope looks acceptable on paper.

Someone who sees "over-policing" of Black children will see "over-scrutiny" of Pakistani networks. The terms of reference are meaningless if the chair cannot psychologically accept what she might find.

4. The Panel Itself Proves This Is a Stitch-Up

Look at who has already been appointed alongside Longfield.

Zoë Billingham was a lead inspector with HM Inspector of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services. She was part of the inspection regime that should have caught police failures but didn't. Now she will investigate the very system she was supposed to oversee.

Eleanor Kelly was leader of Tower Hamlets and Southwark councils. These are London boroughs where grooming gangs operated while she held executive responsibility. She comes from the same Labour ecosystem as Mayor Sadiq Khan, who continues to deny that grooming gangs are a problem in London. Now Kelly will investigate council failures while having been a council leader herself in a city where the Labour establishment still refuses to acknowledge the crime.

This is the state investigating itself in its purest form.

A real inquiry would investigate named councils, named police forces, named officials, and named inspectors. It would ask why decisions not to act were taken and who took them.

Instead, we get the inspectors investigating their own inspection failures and council leaders from denial-mode Labour authorities investigating council failures.

Without individual accountability, there is no justice. Only paperwork written by the people who created the mess.

5. Survivors Have Already Been Sidelined

The pattern is clear from day one.

The government's own survivors panel were excluded from the appointment process. The very people this inquiry is supposed to serve had no say in choosing who would lead it.

Instead, Baroness Casey was tasked with recommending candidates. The same Louise Casey whose rapid review produced the sanitized language about "CSE" rather than Pakistani rape gangs. Casey recommended Longfield and the panel, effectively ensuring continuity with the cover-up narrative.

For any credible inquiry, survivors must be able to give evidence without filtering by intermediaries, have independent legal support, and see their testimony reflected accurately in findings.

They are not "stakeholders". They are the reason this inquiry exists.

But if they have already been excluded from choosing who investigates their abuse, they will remain excluded from the process itself. The inquiry has already failed them before it has even begun.

6. How Can They Prosecute Their Own Networks?

Any credible inquiry that discovers evidence of criminal wrongdoing, misconduct in public office, or gross professional negligence must be required to refer cases for prosecution or disciplinary action.

Not "recommend". Not "consider". Refer.

• But how can this panel be trusted to do that?
• How can Longfield refer Labour officials for prosecution when she is a Labour peer whose career depends on party loyalty?
• How can Billingham refer police officers and inspectors for prosecution when she was part of the very inspection system that failed to catch these crimes?
• How can Kelly refer council leaders for misconduct when she was a council leader herself in authorities where grooming gangs operated?

They would be prosecuting their own professional networks, their own political allies, their own institutional colleagues.

That is not accountability. It is asking the guilty to judge themselves. With this panel, the inquiry can only deliver historical analysis, not justice.

This inquiry is not designed to deliver justice. It is designed to deliver closure for the state that failed these girls.

If it proceeds as planned, the grooming gangs scandal will not end with prosecutions, resignations, or institutional change. It will end with a report that blames "systems" rather than people, recommends "lessons" rather than consequences, and allows everyone responsible to retire quietly with their pensions intact.

The only question now is whether the British people will allow that to happen.

I am Raja Miah. For seven years, I led a small team that exposed how politicians protected the rape gangs.

I cannot do this on my own. I need you to stand with me and help make sure we can stop the sectarian takeover of the places we call home.

We’re running out of time. Without the numbers, they will win. It’s as simple as that.

🔴 Subscribe to my newsletter – it’s free. Or support the work for just 75p a week (£3/month or £30/year).

Whatever you do, please subscribe;

This is the fight.
This is the moment.
There will not be another.

🔴 Prefer a one-off contribution?
👉 http://BuyMeACoffee.com/recusantnine
👉 http://paypal.me/RecusantNine

No corporate sponsors. No party machine. Just you and thousands of ordinary people who know what’s at stake. We’ve come this far. Help finish it.

• Raja Miah MBE