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The use of inflammatory language over grooming gangs risks vilifying entire communities and could lead to atrocities such as the mosque massacre in New Zealand that killed more than 50 people, the health secretary has warned.
Wes Streeting said he had “no difficulty or qualms” calling out the “sickening” crimes of sexual abuse gangs, criticising “well meaning, but ultimately fundamentally misguided and warped views of political correctness” for letting down thousands of children.
But in an interview with the Guardian, the Ilford North MP warned: “At the same time, there are people in my community who have either Pakistani heritage or look different, who are now more fearful today than they were before.”
After a week in which Elon Musk’s increasingly erratic tirades against the UK government have dominated the news agenda, Streeting predicted a “global battle” in coming decades over whether big tech would be harnessed for the common good or by tyrannical forces.
The government has rejected calls from the billionaire X owner and rightwing politicians for a national inquiry into grooming gangs, although some Labour figures, including the Greater Manchester mayor, Andy Burnham, have suggested there should be one with limited scope.
Keir Starmer and his ministers have said they are open-minded about holding one in future but that their priority is acting on recommendations of the 2022 report into child sexual abuse first, with further details expected to be set out in the coming weeks.
The prime minister has accused the Conservatives of “jumping on the bandwagon” after failing to act during their 14 years in power, and condemned Kemi Badenoch for her plan – rejected by MPs – to vote down a bill on children’s wellbeing by amending it to call for an inquiry.
In his interview, Streeting, who has been among those at the forefront of the government’s response to Musk, Reform UK’s Nigel Farage and the Conservatives, went further.
“Victims’ voices have been completely marginalised, and I think that’s a disgrace,” he said. “If Kemi Badenoch is in any doubt whatsoever about where irresponsible and coarse public discourse can lead on this issue, look on the other side of the world, in Christchurch, New Zealand, where someone walked into a mosque and killed innocent Muslims stone cold dead with a gun whose magazine had inscribed on it ‘for Rotherham’.
“We have to be extremely clear about the failings, the nature of it, and not allow political correctness, fear of stating the truth as it is to fail victims, as has happened before. We must also make sure that entire communities are not tarred with the same brush.”
More than 50 people were killed, and 89 others injured, after New Zealand’s worst ever mass shooting in March 2019 when an Australian far-right extremist, Brenton Tarrant, opened fire in two Christchurch mosques.
Images from the gunman’s camera showed weapons and ammunition displaying white-supremacist symbols, including one ammunition clip with the words “For Rotherham”, in an apparent reference to child grooming gangs in the UK town.
In the interview, Streeting suggested there was a major struggle ahead for the future of technology, which was currently concentrated in the hands of a few tech billionaires with little or no experience of normal people’s lives in Britain.
“As with any revolution, the key thing is that power, wealth and opportunity is in the hands of the many, not the privileged few. I think technology can have a liberating role,” he said.
“We’ve got to make sure that technology is harnessed for the common good, and we’ve got to make sure that it’s governed by democratic principles. There is going to be a big global battle over this over the course of this century, as to whether it’s democracy or tyranny that triumphs in this space.”
While he stopped short of describing the billionaire X owner as a “tyrant”, he said: “There is still a big challenge for big tech to be democratising and a force for closing inequalities and injustices rather than exacerbating them. We’ve given way too much air time to one tech titan who lives in a different country, who, frankly, doesn’t know what he’s talking about when it comes to what happens here in Britain.”
The Home Office’s Homeland Security group is monitoring social media posts by Musk and others as a possible national security risk. However, Downing Street has no plans for the government to come off X.
Streeting is one of many Labour figures who has been grappling with how to deal with the rise of populism, with Reform UK soaring in the polls and a battle for the political right between Nigel Farage’s party and the Conservatives.
“What we have a responsibility to do is deliver real change that people voted for, because what we have seen across liberal democracies is a failure to tackle deep inequalities in society,” the health secretary said.
“A failure to deliver change that improves people’s life chances, opportunities and security leads people to the siren voices of the populists calling them to the rocks – and populism offers false hope. It is [our] responsibility to deliver, so we match hope with real change.
“I know the last six months have been difficult … because this government has made some unpopular decisions … because we genuinely think they’re the right decisions to get this country out of the massive hole it was left in.”
Streeting, tipped as a potential future Labour leader, defended Starmer, whose popularity ratings are currently at near-record lows, predicting the prime minister would “100%” take the party into the next election.
“That man is constantly underestimated, but his superpower is that he does not get blown off course by events. He doesn’t have a thin skin on criticism. He doesn’t do politics as performance and he doesn’t believe in government by gimmick.
“Of course unpopular decisions are unpopular. He’s taking unpopular decisions because he thinks they’re the right decisions for the country. If we change Britain for the better, people will thank him for it. If he ducks those difficult decisions, tries to crowd please, like some of his predecessors, we will wonder how this country continued on a doom spiral and the populists took over.”
