#metoo Is A Distraction From Reality

Today’s Guardian has an opinion piece by Jennifer Williams, The horrible truth is that some female victims are seen as less important than others, she has been covering the story of review of Operation Augusta for the Manchester Evening News.

The opinion piece takes a #metoo angle, perhaps a necessity to get it published by the Guardian. It is not dissimilar in approach to an article Brendan O’Neil wrote in Spiked, four days ago, We have to talk about these Pakistani gangs. Both articles pose the question, ‘where is the outrage?’… particularly from feminists.

Quite why they want feminists to get involved isn’t clear. Not only are they the group least likely to attract support and sympathy for this issue. They are also the group most likely to drive people away. As will a flurry of #metoo accusations.

It is certainly true that the Manchester report has been overshadowed by the story of the Sparkles. And to a lesser (though complimentary) extent by the revelations from the IOPC report into South Yorkshire police, with a great deal of attention being paid to the phrase “paki shagging”. According to the Times six of the complaints have been upheld against South Yorkshire police.

If this #metoo angle drums up interest, and stops the endless whining of ‘what about the white folk?’, perhaps it will do some good…

Forgive my doubts.

The IOPC press release, contains the statement, “(it) had been going on for 30 years and the police could do nothing because of racial tensions.” or when (the aptly named) Cressida Dick says “grooming of children has been a part of this country for centuries, it’s hard to know what’s changed”, they are both speaking the truth: they aren’t condoning it: they aren’t saying it is the new normal: they are expressing the realities of police work (in what was a low priority and uncharted area of policing).

And forgive my returning to Rita, Sue and Bob Too, which is also thirty years old, has a 81% Rotten Tomato score, and contains “paki shagging”, (well implied “paki shagging” because from memory Rita and Aslan spend a fair bit of time walking up and down Lumb Lane). Is it now to get the Jimmy Saville treatment? And is Andrea Dunbar posthumously to be dug up and given a skimmity ride?

Clearly aspects of what has gone on in Rotherham, Manchester, Oxford, Telford, Keighley, Bradford and various other places, is not what is portrayed in Ms Dunbar’s film. But what her film does show is glimpse at the people who might be involved, and a taste of the environment: or as Hilary Mantel (snobbishly) puts it, “ The film asks us to like [Rita and Sue] and pity them, to find them funny and to find their lives funny, but in fact the girls appear desperate and pathetic.”

Pretending that (the aptly named) Police Commissioner Dame Dick is downplaying the criminality of these incidents is disingenuous. Just as her saying “it’s hard to know what has changed” is pretending not to understand the widespread perception the police did nothing on purpose. Perhaps she is correct, ‘nothing has changed’: reading the manuscript of an acquaintance, who went through the care system in the 1930’s, became a prostitute, and was in and out of asylums for most of their life, it is tempting to agree with (the aptly named) Ms Dick.

However, the question that no-one seems willing to answer is this…

“What would the reaction have been if @gmpolice under the cloud institutional racism of McPherson, in the wake of the 2001 riots, during the Iraq war, and with Nick Griffin on trial in Leeds, prior to a GE, had arrested 97 ‘Asian’ men?”

I have asked it of Sarah Champion, Trevor Phillips, Maajid Nawaz, Allison Pearson, Jennifer Williams, Brendan O’Neil, in fact everyone I can find that is tweeting about this subject. No one has yet replied (I don’t have a blue checkmark — not important enough). Oh well I will just have to keep asking.

So let’s get in the time machine… and go back to 2004, when David Blunkett was Home Secretary to see if there might be some clues as to why people were turning a blind eye to these issues.

Ok, this isn’t chronological…

In Dec Mr Blunkett resigned in a row about his obtaining a visa for his ex-lover’s Filipino nanny. There were allegations of phone hacking. ID cards were meant to be a thing. In Sept, Mr Blunkett was forced to release an Algerian man known as D, who had been interned indefinitely under anti-terror laws. In March, Mr Blunkett criticises the treatment of British detainees in Guantanamo. (blogger) Boris Johnson shared some gossip. The Chief Constable of Humberside, David Westwood, was being pressured to resign over his handling of information relating to Soham murderer Ian Huntley. In July, Mr Blunkett shocked Christians by likening them to Islamists and suggested the government would decide what is, and isn’t, a legitimate religious belief. In August, Mr Blunkett threatened two whistle-blowers with legal action for exposing the government’s immigration policy. In Sept, Mr Blunkett threatened to jail asylum seekers. Oh, and in April, Mr Blunkett proposed jailing people who ‘sympathized with’ or ‘continued to contact’ known Islamists.

So what?

Go back to the review of Operation Augusta…

“ On 12 July 2004, the SIO attended a meeting at GMP headquarters to discuss communications. This meeting acknowledged that the enquiry was sensitive due to the involvement of Asian men. The communications lead was asked to consider the Channel 4 documentary on West Yorkshire that might go forward in case this caused problems for Augusta. Concerns were expressed about the risk of proactive tactics or the incitement of racial hatred. There were also concerns expressed about the damaged relations following Operation Zoological.”

Seen from a distance of sixteen years, these seem like excuses. Just as when the police in Rotherham refer to being able to do “nothing because of racial tensions.”

Add this to, “ Detective Constable B was less positive about the approach and told the review team:“After the tasking meeting, we didn’t look too much, we looked at the offenders we had, not a lot of new intelligence came in, and we couldn’t develop it. There wasn’t a huge degree of penetration in the Asian community.”

This is the reason for pointing out this background information, in order to try and place what these officers are saying to the review team into the context of the time. And to consider the reasons why there might be little penetration of the Asian community, and the levels of mistrust that existed.

After the publication of the Jay report in 2015, Muslim groups in Rotherham including British Muslim Youth called for a boycott of the police.

So when Maajid Nawaz says…

“ 27 British cities &counting have witnessed underage rape (grooming) gang convictions perpetrated by mainly Pakistani-Brit,almost always Muslim, gangs against underage mainly white girls. This is a national disgrace. We need a Stephen Lawrence-style soul searching National Inquiry”

We should applaud his journey, but we should also remind ourselves that in 2004 when Operation Augusta was in operation he was in an Egyptian prison (on charges relating to Islamism), three years away from leaving Hizb-ut-Tahrir. Had he been in Manchester at the time he would no doubt have been stoking fears at (Blundering) Blunkett’s latest initiative, and the impending visit from Jean Marie Le Penn.