Euan McColm: Kemi Badenoch’s use of rape scandal for political point-scoring is unforgivable

UK government minister Jess Phillips, centre, has been the subject of threats and abuse following comments by Elon Musk. Picture: Gareth Fuller - WPA Pool/Getty Images

Few public figures suffer the level of abuse endured by Labour MP Jess Phillips.

A former manager with Women’s Aid, the member for Birmingham Yardley – in common with other female politicians – attracts a constant deluge of attacks. Whenever she speaks, as she frequently does, in the House of Commons about violence against women, Phillips receives threats of rape and murder. This has been routine since she first entered parliament in 2015.

Outspoken and defiant, Phillips pushes the buttons of misogynists. She’s a gobby woman who doesn’t know her place, who won’t just sit down and shut up.

Right now, men who love to hate women have Phillips back in their sights. Over recent days, she’s been branded a danger to children and a friend to abusers.

For this new wave of hatred, Phillips may thank Tesla billionaire and Donald Trump acolyte Elon Musk.

The tycoon’s accusation on his social media site X that Phillips was a “rape genocide apologist” led to a tsunami of abuse. And many of Phillips’s opponents have been shamefully complicit.

Musk’s disgraceful accusation came as he and others on the right sought to exploit the suffering of women who, as children, were groomed and then repeatedly raped by gangs of Asian men in a number of English towns and cities.

There is no question that these victims were horrifically, shamefully failed. Police, crippled by fear that they might be accused of racism, failed to investigate and put to an end the most appalling abuse. The details of what those men did to scores of children are difficult to read and impossible to forget. And on the rare occasions that police did intervene, the girls involved were viewed as criminals rather than victims.

But none of the above supports Musk’s claim.

The businessman’s attack on Phillips – currently minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls – came after the Government rejected calls for a new public inquiry into the scandal.

Last October, Phillips rejected a request from Oldham Council for an independent public inquiry into historic child abuse by grooming gangs. It was her view that a locally-run inquiry would be better.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch began the new year with the claim that a national inquiry into these scandals was “long overdue”.

This prompted Musk – equal parts sinister and ludicrous, like a Bond villain played by Dean Gaffney – to declare that Phillips “deserves to be in prison”.

Like the crank he is, Musk suggested the rejection of a new inquiry was to shield Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer from criticism over his leadership of the Crown Prosecution Service at the time some of the abuse occurred.

This is the stuff of fantasy.

A number of victims of sex-based violence – including survivors of rape by a grooming gang in Telford – criticised Musk and defended Phillips, saying nobody in public life had done more to support victims of male violence.

Phillips has been typically bullish in her responses over the past few days. In an interview with Sky’s political editor, the minister said Musk should “crack on with getting to Mars”. She would be led by what victims wanted not what he demanded.

During that long interview, I heard anger and resolve but also fear.

in a separate interview with BBC’s Newsnight, Phillips said “disinformation” spread by Musk was endangering her. Since his attacks, she added, threats to her safety had increased.

The emotive nature of the crimes of these gangs – few things provoke a more visceral response than the abuse of children – makes them ripe for exploitation by populists.

So, of course, this is precisely what Kemi Badenoch is now doing.

Starmer’s accusation that the leader of the opposition’s call for a new inquiry into sexual abuse gangs was mere “bandwagon jumping” provoked howls of outrage from Tory MPs in the House of Commons on Wednesday but the PM was right.

Badenoch, said Starmer “met her recently acquired view that it’s a scandal, having spent a lot of time on social media over Christmas”. Not once over the preceding eight years had she said anything similar.

Badenoch’s response was pure dogwhistle. Resisting a new inquiry, she said, would mean speculation about a “cover up”.

During the last Tory government, Badenoch spent almost two years as minister for women and equalities. She had ample opportunity to establish a new inquiry if she thought one necessary.

Until Elon Musk decided to proclaim on this issue, the Conservatives seemed happy that an earlier independent inquiry into child sexual abuse – chaired by Professor Alexis Jay and concluded in 2022 – represented an adequate response to the scandals which saw the abuse of so many girls wilfully ignored.

On Wednesday, Badenoch waved away Starmer’s argument that to establish a second inquiry would mean the delay of the implementation of Jay’s recommendations.

In 2016, the Labour MP Jo Cox was murdered in her Yorkshire constituency. In 2021, the Conservative Sir David Amess was stabbed to death in Leigh-on-Sea. it later emerged that Amess’s murderer Ali Harbi Ali had researched a number of other MPs, including Phillips.

Badenoch knows that politicians are vulnerable to the attention of extremists. This being so, her nudge-nudge-wink-wink approach to the matter of whether a second inquiry into rape gangs is necessary was shameful.

If Badenoch believed there had been some kind of cover-up then she should have said so, clearly.

The Tory leader’s intervention in the matter of rape gangs and the scandal of how they were allowed to operate with impunity for years is not about justice for victims. It is a political calculation by a populist.

Elon Musk’s attacks on Phillips are unwarranted and unacceptable and she is perfectly entitled – indeed, wise – to feel unsafe as a consequence.

Kemi Badenoch’s attempt to score political points over the rape gangs scandal is unforgivable.