Ex-Labour Chairman Advised Against Discussing Grooming Gang Ethnicity

Rochdale: So, Simon Danczuk, the ex-MP for Rochdale, has come out with some pretty shocking claims. He says that Tony Lloyd, the former Labour chairman, told him not to mention the ethnicity of grooming gangs because it could hurt their chances at the polls.

Danczuk, who was in office from 2010 to 2017, felt threatened by Lloyd while he was running for Greater Manchester police and crime commissioner. Back in 2012, nine men were convicted for serious crimes, and most of them were of British Pakistani descent.

Since then, more men have been convicted, and the police have even apologized for not investigating earlier claims properly. Danczuk was vocal about the grooming gangs and even brought whistleblowers to Parliament.

But he mentioned that Yvette Cooper, who was the shadow home secretary at the time, never asked for his input on the matter. He claims that both Lloyd and another MP, Jim Dobbin, advised him to keep the ethnicity angle out of the conversation.

In a letter from 2017, Danczuk expressed his worries about how Lloyd tried to distance the grooming scandal from the Asian Muslim community. He said Lloyd even threatened him over the phone when he raised concerns about police performance.

Danczuk believes that Lloyd was worried about the electoral fallout if the abuse was linked to the Asian Muslim community. Lloyd eventually became the police commissioner in 2012 and returned to Parliament in 2017, but sadly passed away in 2024.

He also mentioned that Dobbin had similar concerns about the electoral impact when the scandal broke. Danczuk has been clear about the connection between the grooming gangs and the community involved, pushing for more action from the police.

Recently, he echoed calls for a national inquiry into grooming gangs, suggesting that the previous inquiries focused too much on historical abuse rather than current issues. He fears that if Labour sets up the inquiry, it might not yield meaningful results.