The UK Grooming Gangs and the Cowardice of the West

Honestly with Bari Weiss

It’s the biggest crime—and cover-up—in British history. And most people, at least until recently, haven’t even heard of it.

Thousands of young girls, mostly children, were systematically groomed and raped by immigrant gangs across the UK over a period of decades. Police turned the girls away. Detectives were discouraged from investigating. Politicians and prosecutors did their best to sweep it under the rug. Journalists skipped the biggest story of their lives. A culture of silence enveloped the United Kingdom. Why?

Today, we talk to two women who spoke out years ago about what was happening while nearly everyone looked the other way: the British feminist and author Julie Bindel, and the author and activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Both took tremendous risks in highlighting the story while the legacy press largely looked away. Bindel is the author, most recently, of Feminism for Women and writes a popular Substack column. Hirsi Ali, a Free Press contributor, is the author of numerous books on radical islam, including Prey: Immigration, Islam, and the Erosion of Women’s Rights, which helped bring attention to the grooming gangs scandal in 2021.

Julie and Ayaan explain today what happened, how these rapes and murders were covered up in the name of preserving “social harmony,” how it’s still happening, why Elon Musk is suddenly tweeting furiously about it and how Britain’s ruling class is being forced to reckon with a scandal it had, until recently, successfully ignored.

It’s a story about “tolerance” run amok, and how a civilized country can convince itself to accept the most uncivilized crimes imaginable.

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