Peasants' from 'sub-communities' responsible for grooming gangs, Badenoch says

Mrs Badenoch said cultural issues surrounding the problem needed to be examined.

“One is on the perpetrators’ side: where do these abusers come from? There’s a lot of misinformation, there’s a lot of generalisation and many innocent people will end up being grouped in with them,” she said.

“But there is a systematic pattern of behaviour, not even just from one country, but from sub-communities within those countries.

“People with a particular background, work background. People with a very poor background, a sort of peasant background, very, very rural, almost cut off from even the home origin countries that they might have been in.”

Asked about the Tory leader’s comments, Downing Street said it was not language Sir Keir Starmer would use.

Mrs Badenoch has repeatedly clashed with the Prime Minister over calls for a national inquiry. The Government has knocked back calls for a national review in favour of locally-led inquiries, saying it is focused on implementing recommendations from Professor Alexis Jay’s 2022 report on the issue.

The issue gained international attention after tech billionaire Elon Musk posted a slew of attacks aimed at the Prime Minister over the issue at the start of the year.

Mrs Badenoch said a national inquiry would shine a light on the truth and hold people to account. “This is about those victims who deserve justice,” she said.

“The survivors who deserve justice by making sure that every single perpetrator we can find is caught and brought to justice, and those who failed in their duty to protect their children are held to account and exposed.”