A tense moment happened in Parliament during Prime Minister’s Questions when Prime Minister Keir Starmer walked out after a heated exchange about grooming gangs and the government’s planned inquiry.
The situation began when a Member of Parliament questioned the government about the proposed terms for the inquiry into rape and grooming gangs. The MP said the current plan is seriously flawed and does not deal with several important issues that victims and survivors have raised.
The MP said the inquiry would not properly examine whether race or religion played a role in motivating some of the crimes. They also said the plan does not look at whether people who may have helped cover up the crimes should face prosecution. Another concern raised was that the inquiry would only investigate a small number of cases instead of examining all incidents connected to the scandal.
The MP reminded the House that the public consultation on the inquiry’s terms will end on Friday. They asked the prime minister to make sure the final terms of the inquiry reflect the concerns raised by victims and campaigners.
However, instead of directly answering the question, Starmer responded by criticizing the MP. He said he would not take advice from someone who had previously suggested that people who are legally settled in the UK should return to their home countries to make the country culturally coherent.
He said that kind of language is offensive and a terrible way to talk about people who are part of British communities.
After this exchange, another MP stood up on a point of order and said the prime minister had wrongly claimed that they made a statement they did not say. The MP asked the Speaker how the record could be corrected.
The Speaker replied that the debate could not continue through a point of order but confirmed that the MP had made their position clear. The Speaker also explained that if something said in Parliament turns out to be incorrect, the person who said it must correct the record themselves.
The moment quickly drew attention, especially after Starmer walked out during the tense exchange, and clips of the incident soon spread online as people reacted to what happened in the chamber.
