Kemi Badenoch was wrong to go after Keir Starmer on grooming gangs – so why did she?

When Keir Starmer became Labour leader in 2020, the Conservatives viewed him as a “leftie human rights lawyer” and were confident they could turn his legal career to their advantage. Tory officials pored over Starmer’s five years as director of public prosecutions (DPP) but the pickings were not as rich as they hoped.

Although Rishi Sunak branded Starmer “Sir Softy” for attending 21 meetings of the sentencing council which watered down punishments, a pre-election blitz planned by the Tories fizzled out. They sent almost 50 questions “Starmer has to answer” to Tory-supporting newspapers, but when the papers put them to Labour, his party was ready with convincing rebuttals. The attack was also undermined when I revealed a biography of Starmer would show the Tory government would have given him a second five-year term as DPP if he had wanted it.

The Tories found no evidence Starmer soft-pedalled on prosecuting the gangs who groomed and raped vulnerable girls. If they had found any, they would certainly have used it. Yet Kemi Badenoch has no such qualms.

After Elon Musk accused Starmer of being “deeply complicit in the mass rapes” while DPP, the new Tory leader called for a national inquiry into the scandal – even though the government in which she served had rejected the idea and by the election had not implemented any of the recommendations in Alexis Jay’s national inquiry into child sexual abuse.

Badenoch suggested Starmer’s refusal to hold a specific investigation into the gangs was to protect Labour figures and would fuel fears of a cover-up. Musk went further, claiming an inquiry would show Starmer was complicit. Badenoch did not need to spell it out when Musk had done so.

In fact, Starmer can be proud of his strong record on tackling the gangs. “None of that matters to Musk or, it seems, Badenoch,” one Starmer ally told me. “They’ll just chuck any s*** around.”

Andrew Norfolk, the former Times journalist who exposed the scandal, refuted the attack on Starmer this week. He revealed the then DPP invited him to a meeting to ask how the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) could help the victims get justice, and immediately transformed the way cases were handled.

“I want to put the record straight on this,” Norfolk told The Times. “It was Starmer who changed the rules to make more prosecutions possible. That happened and there was a huge increase in convictions.”

Ironically, the real criticism of Starmer is that he went too far, encouraging a culture in which victims must always be believed. Critics claim that encouraged false claims against several high-profile public figures.

Nazir Afzal, who headed the CPS in the North West, said victims of the grooming gangs he met again this week have been “re-traumatised” by the political controversy. “Those people jumping on the proverbial bandwagon need to realise the impact of what they are doing,” he told BBC Radio 4.

But Badenoch could not resist an opportunist hit at Starmer. It offered a way to undermine him and to play the immigration card without inviting questions about the Tories’ failures in office because this was not about the number of migrants. It would curry favour with Musk as the Tories battled with Nigel Farage for his affections.

Significantly, Badenoch did not rebuke Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, who claimed the affair started with “importing hundreds of thousands of people from alien cultures, who possess medieval attitudes towards women”.

Some senior Tories were appalled at another depressing sign UK politics is heading down the US track. “Kemi will come to regret this,” one said. Indeed, Musk’s real agenda was hinted at when the Financial Times reported he has discussed with allies how to remove Starmer before the next election.

Although the world’s richest man doesn’t let the truth get in the way of getting whatever he wants, that didn’t stop the UK media from amplifying his lies about Starmer. Even though Musk claimed the mainstream media had covered up the scandal for 20 years. A bit odd when The Times revealed it.

Sadly, some mud always sticks; some voters will believe the lies. One reason why Starmer decided he could no longer ignore Musk and attacked those “spreading lies and misinformation” – a retort also aimed at Badenoch.

Some close allies had privately urged the PM to go further against Musk, and he might yet. One option is to strengthen the Online Safety Act, which protects adults and children online, just as America regrettably heads in the opposite direction.

If that happens, the Twitter/X owner’s unhealthy intervention in British politics will have backfired. Home Office officials are monitoring Musk’s tweets after his utterly ludicrous and dangerous claim that Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister and long-standing campaigner on violence against women and girls, is a “rape genocide apologist” who should be jailed.

I’m told Starmer is relieved and pleased he hit back, and will be “more aggressive” in the face of Musk’s incessant attacks in future. He will be right to do so.