I don’t care much for Jess Phillips. A couple of years back when shadow minister for domestic abuse and safeguarding she made a big show of returning to the back benches, allegedly in protest at Starmer’s stance on Gaza.
I reckon it had nothing whatever to do with her suddenly discovering an umbilical cord to the Middle East but everything to do with the religious make-up of her constituency in Yardley, Birmingham.
By a long way, Muslims are the dominant voting group in Yardley with 48,432 of the 106,000 constituents following Islam.
You don’t have to be a genius to work out that for Ms Phillips political survival (whether she believed it or not) she had to do something that would warm the hearts of local Muslims.
And it worked. Come July 4 she scraped in as MP, but seeing her majority plummet from 10,000 in 2019 to less than 700 in 2024. The gamble had paid off. Clearly she would have thrown out had she not resigned.
You would have thought that Starmer would have been irritated at her actions over Gaza left her in the cold.
But no, he instead gave her the job of safeguarding and violence against women and girls.
Now she has repaid him by refusing to allow a public inquiry into Pakistani rape gangs who got away with the years of sexual abuse of young white girls in Oldham because police officers and council officials felt that to arrest these vile men would create ‘’tensions’’ with Muslims in the town.
It was suggested by Elon Musk, and taken up by the Conservatives, that the reason Phillips refused the inquiry was that the role of Starmer, who was head of the Crown Prosecution Service from 2008-2013, would come under scrutiny.
Kelvin MacKenzie has hit out at Jess Phillips
PA
I would like to believe this as I’ve have been trying through Freedom of Information to nail Starmer for his failure to charge Harrods owner Mohammed Fayed during his time at the CPS with the sexual abuse of a 15-year-old.
I’ve come up against a brick wall as after a number of emails the CPS say they have ‘’no information’’ on this matter. I doubt that’s true but there is nowhere for me to go.
But actually I don’t believe Starmer’s actions allowed those rape gangs to have years of freedom to which were not entitled. The religious make-up of Oldham is solely the reason, but it is bizarre that Phillips who is supposed to be looking after women and girls can’t take this big opportunity to prove it.
The reality is that of the 47,000 Muslims in Oldham, 32,000 are Pakistani. I’ve even seen it reported that council meetings in Oldham were opened with a Muslim prayer in Arabic. How incredible. If anybody suggested they sing God Save the Queen I imagine there would be a terrible rumpus.
Clearly Islam has quite a grip on the town. And that is what’s worth a public inquiry. Places like Oldham, Rochdale, Rotherham, have huge numbers of Muslims with plenty of political heft in the district and the question is are they acting in the town’s interest or in the interest of those that follow Islam.
Let’s be honest. Oldham and other Muslim towns in the North are not in great shape financially and are a long way from London so politicians from all sides are not prepared to speak up for the white population for fear they will be branded racist.
I doubt if David Cameron or Boris could find Oldham in a light mist which is why I don’t take seriously Badenoch calling for a statutory public inquiry. The Tories hadn’t said a word about Oldham until the Times exposed what was going on.
Jess Phillips had already shown she was not prepared to stand up against the big Muslim vote in Yardley so why should she stir up the Muslims of Oldham by saying yes to an inquiry.
But it does make you wonder if all political decisions made by this Labour Government over the next four years will have one eye on what the followers of Islam think. I do hope not but I fear the answer is yes they do.