Succumbing to pressure, Britain’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, on Saturday announced a full national inquiry into child sexual exploitation and abuse — a years-old issue brought back to public attention by the tech billionaire Elon Musk in vitriolic social media posts some months ago.
For months, Mr. Starmer had faced criticism for refusing to set up a comprehensive national investigation with wide-ranging powers into the abuse by so-called “grooming gangs” of men, who were found to have sexually exploited thousands of girls over the past two decades.
Instead, the government argued that the issue had already been examined, and that its priority was implementing the findings of a previous investigation into child sexual abuse. That inquiry took seven years, processed more than two million pages of evidence and featured the voices of some 6,000 victims.
But speaking to reporters on his way to the Group of 7 summit meeting in Canada, Mr. Starmer said that he had now accepted recommendations from Louise Casey, who was asked earlier this year to review the data and evidence on the nature and scale of abuse.
Ms. Casey, a member of the House of Lords, the unelected upper chamber of the British Parliament, had originally thought a full national inquiry was unnecessary but had changed her mind, Mr. Starmer said.
“She’s come to the view there should be a national inquiry on the basis of what she’s seen,” Mr. Starmer told the BBC. “I’ve read every single word of her report and I’m going to accept her recommendation.”
The British prime minister added that it was the “right thing to do” but said that it could take a little time to set up a statutory inquiry with the power to compel witnesses to provide evidence.
The scandal, which was widely covered in the British media in the 2010s and has already been the subject of local and national inquiries, spanned a number of towns and cities where mostly white girls were exploited, assaulted and raped by groups of men. Most of the perpetrators were of British-Pakistani heritage.
According to several inquiries, the police and social services often failed to help victims and parents who asked them. Some officials said they feared they would be labeled racist if they highlighted the ethnicity of the perpetrators.
Though widely reported in the British media at the time, attention to the issue was reignited by Mr. Musk’s inflammatory social media posts in January. In one post, he accused Mr. Starmer, a former chief prosecutor, of being complicit in “the rape of Britain.”
On Saturday Kemi Badenoch, leader of the opposition Conservative Party, criticized Mr. Starmer for failing to act sooner.
“I’ve been repeatedly calling for a full national inquiry since January. It’s about time he recognized he made a mistake and apologized for six wasted months,” she said in a statement.
Ms. Badenoch added: “There are many, many more questions that need answering to ensure this inquiry is done properly and quickly. Many survivors of the grooming gangs will be relieved that this is finally happening, but they need a resolution soon, not in several years’ time. Justice delayed is justice denied.”
Stephen Castle is a London correspondent of The Times, writing widely about Britain, its politics and the country’s relationship with Europe.
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