The government’s long-promised Grooming Gangs Inquiry, meant to deliver long-overdue justice to survivors of group-based child sexual exploitation, is now on the brink of collapse, engulfed in political infighting, resignations, and survivor outrage. What was meant to expose the failures that enabled years of abuse has instead spiralled into a power struggle that threatens to overshadow the pursuit of truth and accountability.
The crisis deepened this week after four survivors resigned from the inquiry’s victims liaison panel, writing to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood to demand the removal of Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips. The women accused Phillips of labelling some of their claims “untrue”, a charge they say they can disprove with evidence. A fifth survivor has now quit, and two leading candidates for chairing the inquiry, Jim Gamble and Annie Hudson, have stepped down, citing “political interference” and an unclear remit, leaving the process leaderless and directionless.
Despite mounting pressure, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has insisted that Jess Phillips has his “full support.” Ministers have rallied around Phillips, praising her long record of fighting for women’s rights. According to a Guardian report, five other survivors have since written to the Prime Minister defending her, saying she “devoted her life to hearing and amplifying the voices of women and girls who would have otherwise been unheard.” They added that she had “personally supported survivors in accessing services and help they would not have had otherwise.”
Yet tensions within the inquiry remain raw. One of the departing survivors, Ellie-Ann Reynolds, said her final breaking point came with “the push to change the remit, to widen it in ways that downplay the racial and religious motivations behind our abuse.” Many survivors fear that by broadening the inquiry’s focus from “grooming gangs” to “group-based child sexual exploitation,” the government is diluting its intent — and obscuring uncomfortable truths about systemic failures and community accountability.
Jess Phillips, addressing Parliament, has dismissed claims of “intentional delay, lack of interest, or widening of the inquiry scope” as false. But survivors have reiterated their demands: that victims be allowed to speak freely without fear of reprisal, that the inquiry’s scope remain laser-focused on grooming gangs, and that the new chair be a sitting or former judge, chosen only after genuine consultation with survivors.
This is not the first inquiry to falter. In 2013, the Home Affairs Select Committee, chaired by Keith Vaz, conducted an investigation that exposed deep institutional failings but resulted in little lasting change.
Now, as survivors once again find themselves sidelined amid political power plays, one question rings louder than ever: When will Britain finally stop tearing itself apart over process and start holding the real culprits- the abusers, the enablers, and the negligent institutions- to account?
