THE ASIAN INDEPENDENT UK
Bal Ram Sampla
Geopolitics
On the floor of the House of Commons, there is one simple rule that every Prime Minister is expected to follow: answer the question. It does not matter whether the question is awkward. It does not matter whether the answer is complicated. The Prime Minister stands at that despatch box as the elected head of the government, accountable to Parliament and to the country. Questions must be answered.
Keir Starmer has decided this rule does not apply to him. Not when the question is about grooming gangs.
When Conservative MP Katie Lam rose at Prime Minister’s Questions to ask about the terms of reference of the government’s grooming gangs inquiry, she deserved a straight answer. What she got instead was an attack on her character. Starmer did not engage with her question. He did not defend the inquiry’s terms. He essentially called her a racist and suggested she belonged in Reform UK.
It was one of the most revealing moments of his premiership — and not in a good way.
What Katie Lam Actually Asked
The question was not obscure. It was not a political trap. It was the kind of question that any victim of grooming gang abuse would want answered.
Lam put to the Prime Minister that the government’s draft terms of reference for the inquiry are fatally flawed.
Specifically: they give the inquiry no scope to examine the role that race and religion played in motivating these crimes; they grant no powers to prosecute officials who may have covered up the abuse; and they exclude cases before 2000, despite overwhelming evidence that these gangs were operating for decades before that date.
These are not fringe concerns. They are substantive, legal, procedural objections raised by lawyers, victims’ advocates, and now opposition MPs. They go to the heart of whether this inquiry will actually deliver justice — or simply deliver the appearance of justice while protecting the powerful.
Lam wanted to know why. It was a fair question. It needed an answer.
What Starmer Actually Said
He did not answer it.
Instead, he turned on Katie Lam personally. He questioned her motives. He implied she was stirring up racial hatred. He suggested, in effect, that asking questions about race and religion in the context of grooming gangs was itself an act of bigotry.
This is a tactic Starmer has used before. When calls for a national inquiry grew louder, he accused those demanding one of ‘jumping on the bandwagon of the far right.’ Senior Labour figures called the issue a ‘dog whistle.’ The message was clear: if you press too hard on this, you will be labelled an extremist.
But Katie Lam is not an extremist. She is an elected Member of Parliament asking a question on behalf of constituents — and on behalf of the thousands of girls who were abused, ignored, and let down by the very institutions now designing this inquiry.
To respond to her with a personal attack was not just evasive. It was contemptible.
Why He Won’t Answer
There are reasons Starmer does not want to go near this subject with any honesty.
Between 2008 and 2013, he served as Director of Public Prosecutions. During that period, a 2009 decision was made by the Crown Prosecution Service not to prosecute suspects in a Rochdale grooming case — a case that later became “emblematic of the systemic failures” that allowed these gangs to operate unchecked for years. Starmer has consistently denied personal responsibility. But the questions have never fully gone away.
To now stand at the despatch box and defend a robust, wide-ranging inquiry — one with real teeth and real powers — would be to invite scrutiny of his own record. It is far safer to keep the inquiry narrow. Far safer to exclude the pre-2000 cases. Far safer to avoid any examination of whether race and religion were factors in how authorities responded, or failed to respond.
The terms of reference, as drafted, protect the past. And the past includes Keir Starmer’s tenure.
The Victims Are Watching
While this political game-playing goes on, there are real people watching.
Women and girls who were raped, trafficked and abused as children. Women who spent years trying to get the police to listen. Women who were told their complaints were not credible, or that pursuing prosecution might inflame ‘community tensions.’ Women who have spent the rest of their lives trying to make sense of how an entire apparatus of the state looked the other way while they suffered.
Those women do not need another narrow inquiry designed to reach comfortable conclusions. They need the truth. They need accountability. They need an inquiry with the scope and the power to actually deliver both.
What they got from the Prime Minister this week was a man calling their advocate a racist.
The Bigger Picture
There is a word for what Starmer did at PMQs. It is called deflection. And in politics, deflection is almost always a confession.
When a Prime Minister cannot or will not answer a straightforward question about the terms of an inquiry, it tells you something. When he responds not with facts but with accusations, it tells you something more. And when the pattern repeats — when every attempt to probe this issue is met with the same tactic of calling the questioner an extremist — it tells you everything.
The Prime Minister does not want a thorough inquiry. He wants the appearance of one. He wants to be seen to be doing something, while ensuring that what is done is limited enough to cause no real discomfort to the institutions — and the individuals — who failed those girls.
That is not justice. It is its opposite.
A Question That Deserves an Answer
Katie Lam asked a simple question. Why are the terms of reference drawn so narrowly? Why no examination of the role of race and religion? Why no power to prosecute those who covered this up? Why exclude decades of abuse from the scope?
Those questions are still waiting for an answer. The victims are still waiting for justice. And the Prime Minister is still hiding behind insults rather than facing the truth.
That is not leadership. It is cowardice dressed up as principle — and the country is starting to notice.
References
1.https://x.com/i/status/2028834127001133258
2.https://www.gbnews.com/news/grooming-gangs-charlie-peters-keir-starmer-conservative-conference
3.https://conservativehome.com/2026/03/04/katie-lam-we-can-make-keir-starmer-u-turn-yet-again-but-we-need-your-help/
4.https://www.gbnews.com/news/keir-starmer-faces-brutal-pmqss-grilling-grooming-gangs-scandal
