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MPs hit back after Farage says Government is ‘kicking the can down the road’ on Southport inquiry
26 January 2025, 14:06
Conservative and Labour MPs have hit back at Nigel Farage after he told LBC he has no confidence in the Government’s inquiry into the Southport attack.
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Nigel Farage told Lewis Goodall at LBC that he had no confidence in the Southport inquiry announced by the government, saying it is ‘another attempt to kick the can down the road’
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced a public inquiry into how Southport child-killer Axel Rudakubana "came to be so dangerous" and why Prevent "failed to identify the terrible risk" he posed to others.
The 18-year-old was sentenced to 52 years in jail this week after pleading guilty to murdering Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, at a dance class in Southport last July.
Rudakubana was referred to Prevent - the Government's anti-terror programme - three times in the years leading up to the attack. Six separate calls about Rudakubana were also made to police.
When asked by Lewis Goodall if had confidence in the inquiry, Farage said: "No. None. I wonder how long it'll take. Six years, Seven years?
“Because that was the argument Keir Starmer gave about a grooming gang's full inquiry. Oh, we can't do that. It'll take seven years.
“This looks to me to be another attempt to kick the can down the road."
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The government has consistently refused to set up a national inquiry into the grooming gangs scandal, saying it is not necessary and that it would delay action on tackling child sexual abuse.
Instead, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced plans for local grooming gangs inquiries, which she said will be able to "delve into far more local detail and deliver more locally relevant answers" than a national probe.
Responding to Farage’s comments, Treasury minister James Murray told Lewis Goodall it is ‘absurd’ that Farage doesn’t support the government’s inquiry into Southport.
"Frankly what Nigel Farage has said is absurd,” Murray said.
“You know, we haven't even set the details out fully of the public inquiry yet and frankly he should support our work to make sure that this tragedy is a line in the sand.
The Labour MP added: “It's the right thing to do to make sure that nothing is off the table in learning the lessons from this absolutely unbearable tragedy".
Murray also said it is important to make sure the definition of terrorism is fit for purpose, as Rudakubana’s triple murder was not treated as a terrorist attack.
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He said: “You have a situation here where this killer is someone who appears to be a violently obsessed individual,
“But without that clear ideology which is usually associated with terrorism - is that fit for purpose? That is a question we need to address and we must learn from it and draw a line in the sand".
Also reacting to Farage’s comments was Shadow Education Secretary Laura Trott, who said the Conservatives do have confidence in the inquiry, unlike the Reform UK leader.
Trott told LBC: "Part of our job as the opposition is to ensure that inquiry is fit for purpose and talk about it where we do have specific concerns and what we would like to have changed and to argue for those.
“So I think the things from our side that we'd like to see is that the inquiry looks at the lead-up to the events, but also what happened afterwards to the government response, whether the information was put into the public domain, that needed to be put in the public domain, and whether that engendered confidence in what was being said.
“Because public confidence in government and what government's saying is high in this country. It needs to remain that way".
The MP for Sevenoaks was also asked if the Conservatives had any plans of working together with Reform.
She said: "The Reform Party have said that they want to destroy the Conservatives. You don't let those types of people into your house".
