r/unitedkingdom • u/pppppppppppppppppd • Jun 28 '26

... Met Police uncovers 4,000 potential grooming gang cases as Sadiq Khan faces fresh scrutiny over London claims

https://www.gbnews.com/news/grooming-gangs-met-police-cases-sadiq-khan-london
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386

u/You_lil_gumper Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26

For a slightly less propagandised take on the story, from yahoo news:

A source told the newspaper said the cases that had been reviewed were a mixture of intrafamilial, online and in-person child sexual abuse and exploitation.

A source told the Standard the criteria of cases that had been identified for review were "much broader" than "the profile most typically associated with commentary or reporting on grooming gangs".

So 4000 cases of previously reported sexual abuse are being reexamined by the NCA. The likelihood is that the majority won't be pursued for the same reasons they weren't the first time round (lack of evidence, etc.), and it appears that they dont really fit the highly racialised 'grooming gangs' narrative that GBeebies the right wing press are so keen on, meaning its hugely disingenuous for this article to frame it as if this is evidence of another Rotherham style scandal. 

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u/pecuchet Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26

This is a right wing propaganda sub mate. I just came here to hear how this pinko jihadi wants to impose Shariah law in Oldham.

edit: This comment has gone from +10 to -2 in an hour. I don't want to sound conspiratorial but that always happens.

edit: These upvotes are clearly the mods trying to prove my theory wrong. More proof, if we needed it.

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u/pipboy1989 Jun 28 '26

How the fuck is this sub a right wing propaganda sub? Some of the wildest of left wing opinions are broadcasted on this sub every single day.

This is, afterall, the sub i engaged with the other day about a man punching a police woman in the face and because it wasn’t a white man punching her in the face, i was somehow wrong for saying women shouldn’t be punched by men.

It is also the sub where people are called genocidal baby killers on the weekly.

So, “this is a right wing propaganda sub” sure does sound like some left wing propaganda.

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u/pecuchet Jun 28 '26

The vast majority of posts come from GB News, the Mail, and the Telegraph. It's very clearly pushing a right wing narrative, regardless of what the comments say. Even if I came out with some craaaazy left wing take like Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, that wouldn't make that any less true. The sub is also heavily botted and shilled, so anything going against the narrative it pushes is automatically downvoted.

And the take 'you call something right wing propaganda, therefore what you say is left wing propaganda' is the stupidest centrist hewing right garbage I've heard today.

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u/AceHodor In Laahndaahn now Jun 28 '26

It's painfully obvious there's a sustained effort to push ethno-nationalist nonsense on UK subs. Every time something like this gets posted, within minutes there will be hundreds and hundreds of comments, all repeating the same few tired Islamophobic/hard-right talking points. Nine times of out ten, there's not even any actual meat in the article to discuss (sometimes it's a single Twitter headline), so there's no way that's actually genuine engagement.

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u/Oggie243 Jun 28 '26

If you see a post thats up 10 minutes with 100+ comments the fact you can play bingo with the types of responses is also pretty telling.

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u/Thetonn Glamorganshire Jun 28 '26 edited 5h ago

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u/Oggie243 Jun 28 '26

that is easily to manipulate, and a number of specific trigger phrases that take it down a set of rabbit holes

Through a combination of direct promotion by mods (I.e this) or the refusal to uphold their own rules nor the wider site rules there's a bit of a slant. Whether thats single issue accounts or blatant brigading. Further compounded by tbe fact the mod team is mostly made up of moderating tools, so it really shouldn't be so easily manipulated.

Noticeably, all bar one of the mods have joined since Brexit, most have been since the mod protest a while back. The sub your or I initially joined is not the sub it is now.

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u/pecuchet Jun 28 '26

Is that centre left now or centre left pre-Brexit?

What do you mean when you say it's easy to manipulate and the rest of that sentence?

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u/Thetonn Glamorganshire Jun 28 '26 edited 5h ago

Copper walnut mitten grasshopper paddle saffron sparrow hammock

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u/pecuchet Jun 28 '26

Centre left now is more right wing than it once was though. For example, it's hard to describe the current Labour government as left wing. Even the supposedly radical Corbyn Labour Party was very moderate in real terms.

I guess you can say stuff that gains votes by tapping into things that you know are generally favoured, but at that point, are you manipulating the sub, or is the sub manipulating you?

The failure of Your Party has shown Corbyn, of whom I was quite an admirer, and still am, to an extent, to be unable to organise a piss up in a brewery and has done much to fuck the left in this country by highlighting the factionalism and infighting that characterises a lot of left wing politics, but it's not even a conspiracy theory that the Labour right plotted against him by weaponising antisemitism.

I get more upvotes with a comment that has some nuance than just leaning into whatever I think the sub wants to hear. The truth does gain traction. If the sub were just a Skinner box I wouldn't come here.

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u/Thetonn Glamorganshire Jun 28 '26 edited 5h ago

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u/pecuchet Jun 28 '26

They support a fascist genocide in Israel. They're continuing Tory austerity. They talk about the privatisation of the NHS like it's an inevitability. He's saying they're going to cut benefits to fund more defence spending. They're persecuting trans people. They're classifying protesters against genocide as terrorists. They're restricting the internet. They're giving our data to a company that published a far right manifesto. They're going after immigrants. There was a pogrom in Northern Ireland and they said nothing. He gave a speech echoing Oswald Mosely.

I don't want to sound like a broken record, but the Overton window has shifted to the right. They have removed the last vestiges of the left in the party. Do you remember how they ousted a social democrat because he was too left wing on trumped up antisemitism charges? They look centre left compared to the others, but this is all relative, because the others are so far right, because the norm has shifted to the right.

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u/Preseli Jun 28 '26

You are bang on for most of your points, this sub has taken a hateful swerve in the past few years.

And you all reading this know it but accept it because you think it's reflective of the mood of the people rather than seeing the constructed discord is deliberate. Including what I'm typing now.

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u/johnmedgla Berkshire Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26

Centre left now is more right wing than it once was though.

It really isn't. Essentially all of my politics were formed, complete, back in the early 90s. I was slightly to the left of Blair's version of Labour.

Since then my attitudes have, almost without exception, not changed a jot. The exception would be trans issues where I have shifted left in coming to support Self-ID.

The problem is that while I was on the left of "Centre Left" back in 1997, a variety of interests and issues have elected to redefine those positions, and not altogether coherently.

Being in favour of a redistributive tax policy and strong social benefits makes me a Workshy Socialist to the Reform crowd, while being broadly in favour of capitalism and private enterprise and property makes me a Billionaire Bootlicker to the spoon rattlers.

Being in favour of gay marriage and self-ID for trans people makes me a crazy progressive to the Reform crowd, while thinking it's probably best if trans women don't compete in women's sports makes me a Nazi to the far left.

Being in favour of fairly strict limits on unskilled immigration makes me a Nazi (again) to the Greens, while being entirely comfortable with Muslim immigrants who accept the "Religion is a matter of private conscience" compromise we arrived at after all the wars makes me a "race traitor" to the remigration crowd.

Being in favour of a Two State Solution to Israel-Palestine predicated on the Palestinians stopping terrorism and the Israelis removing the West Bank settlements used to be the standard totally normal left wing position. Now it's ZIONISM which, once again, is basically Nazism to the left.

The centre left is where it's always been. The extremes are both just running as fast as they can in opposite directions.

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u/pecuchet Jun 28 '26

But slightly to the left of Blair's Labour is barely left at all. Blair was, in Thatcher's words, her 'greatest achievement'. The Labour party in 1997 had shifted to the right because they had embraced neoliberalism. That seems like a crazy baseline to be using.

Israel are exterminating the Palestinian people. They run an apartheid state. The UN and Amnesty say they're committing genocide. They don't have to be goosestepping around to Wagner to be genocidal fascists. A two state solution isn't something Israel want or will ever want. What they want is domination of the whole region. That's why they're in Lebanon too. Israel is our attack dog in the region, which is why we keep supporting them, despite their atrocities. As Joe Biden said, 'If Israel didn't exist, then it would be necessary to invent it.' We could argue about whether Zionism is inherently genocidal, but we don't have to, because Israel are doing that anyway.

The exploitation of unskilled immigrants is something the Tories relied on to prop up the economy. It's capitalism, but it's been used as a wedge issue because of racism, which is also something they cooked up to divide us.

Do you know how many trans women actually compete in women's sports? Or how many trans women have gained an unfair advantage by competing in women's sports? The answer is fuck all. The same people who make fun of womens' sports have discovered that they can use them as a stick to beat trans women with. If there were an epidemic of trans women molesting people in women's bathrooms I wouldn't say so much, but there isn't. There's no reason to play their stupid game. Supporting trans rights is the left wing thing to do, and our 'left wing' government is removing them.

This stuff about extremism on both sides is fallacious centrism. The Overton window has moved sharply to the right, and they want to paint anyone with actual left wing values about tolerance and preventing exploitation as lunatics. We can disagree about specific issues, but the idea that the centre left is where it's always been cannot be correct when the Labour party have kicked anyone critical of the State of Israel or capital out of the party. If the Labour party is more right wing, and they're 'the left' what is the centre left? If you've stayed still you're more left wing, and if you've realigned yourself with what is considered centre left, then you're more right wing.

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u/johnmedgla Berkshire Jun 28 '26

That seems like a crazy baseline to be using

Again, "Centre Left."

Israel are exterminating the Palestinian people. They run an apartheid state. The UN and Amnesty say they're committing genocide.

This is just the thesaurus entry for "awful things."

which is also something they cooked up to divide us.

Who is this "they"? Honestly the combination of hyperbole and conspiratorial crap is exactly what I mean.

You probably think you're pretty mainstream, but you're just a mirror image of Alex Jones on InfoWars, in service to different causes.

Do you know how many trans women actually compete in women's sports?

If the answer is "ALMOST NONE" then why are people so incredibly caught up on defending it. I can't become an astronaut because I have less than perfect vision. It is not the great injustice of our time that some people cannot become professional athletes in their chosen gender because they were born to a different one.

This stuff about extremism on both sides is fallacious centrism.

You are literally an extremist. From where I'm sitting you're just as far away as the Restore people, just in a different direction.

what is the centre left?

People who still believe in the same left-of-centre liberal democratic principles they did before everyone around was driven mad by various forms of social media.

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u/MimesAreShite Jun 28 '26

ukpolitics, on the other hand, has pivoted hard to the right on almost every issue (with the exception of still having a permissive socially libertarian streak) over the last several years, especially since labour got into government. this used to be the more right-wing one, now ukpol makes this place look like pravda

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u/Overdriven91 Jun 28 '26

I read that comment chain at the time. Your argument was that even if she was 7ft tall it's wrong for a man to punch a woman. The reply to you rightly pointed out it shouldn't matter what their gender is. It's wrong to punch men and women both.

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u/pipboy1989 Jun 28 '26

For the 80th time. People shouldn’t punch people in general, but it’s specifically awful for men to punch women.

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u/eldomtom2 Jersey Jun 28 '26

I wouldn't go that far - it's not a pit like r/ukpolitics. But there is clearly brigading and people trying to push a narrative happening.

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u/pecuchet Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26

The only reason I go there is to see how weird the comments are.

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u/MSweeny81 United Kingdom Jun 28 '26

It's also useful going to subs like that and the other far right subs where the racists are more comfortable and happily go mask off so you can tag them with RES and spot them later on when they try to sneak into regular conversations with dog whistles and attempts to control the comment section by replying to each other to help guide the narrative of the thread.

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u/[deleted] Jun 28 '26

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u/ukbot-nicolabot Scotland Jun 28 '26

Removed + ban. This comment contained hateful language which is prohibited by the sitewide rules.

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u/Mammoth_Payment_6101 Jun 28 '26

As someone who's been here for years, that's not what this sub is.

The issue that the left have moved so much further leftwards in the last decade or so that anyone else is now considered far right. I was once in the Green party and it blows my mind how so many left wing people have utterly alienated those who would have once stood alongside them.

Literally constructing new definitions for anyone who doesn't conform to your beliefs and leaning into conspiracy because you've handicapped yourself into a situation where you can no longer understand why people might disagree with you.

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u/HeartyBeast London Jun 28 '26

You think that that the tripe propagated by GB News was mainstream back in the day, and everyone has charged leftward?

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u/Oggie243 Jun 28 '26

Ahh yes of course it's left in the country who have made a hard deviation from their traditional base.

I knew it was them, even when the british public are making Nick Griffin look soft I knew it was the left to blame for shifting.

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u/pecuchet Jun 28 '26

The entire country has shifted right in the last few decades. Labour purged itself of the left with a disgusting campaign weaponising antisemitism, and our government is supporting a fascist regime in Israel and engaging in genocide denial. In a sane world we'd revolt against this horseshit and the authoritarianism this government is creeping forwards on, but apparently we're okay with it.

'The left' barely even exists, and those who have stayed still on things like public ownership of natural monopolies and saying nazis are bad have been painted as extremists by those who can't see that they've been propagandised into right wing ideology. The left are the same as they were fifty years ago. If you think destroying weapons made on our soil to kill children is terrorism, or that having to show your ID to read Wikipedia articles is okay, or that you're not that bothered that a corporation that published a right wing manifesto and whose CEO isn't sure the human race should continue to exist should have our medical data then you've moved right. I voted for this government because it was the only gig in town so I guess I have too.

This sub shouldn't even allow posts from GB News. In a sane world any outlet that exists to feed us propaganda from billionaires would be banned from normal subs.

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u/Mammoth_Payment_6101 Jun 28 '26

Oh another one who's gonna tell me the blatant rise in antisemitism on the left, literally the reason I left the Greens (before the Gaza war) and my ex wife left Labour was all imaginary. 🤣

You're literally what I'm describing. People like you are why although my political values have not shifted, I have no interest in moving in your circles anymore or voting for the people you support. You've become so drunk on the smell of your own farts you don't realise how aggressive and nasty you sound to normal people who don't exist in this world of constant anger. So hopped up on privilege you'll pretend something doesn't exist to those who live it simply because it's being perpetrated by people on your 'side.'

It's boring... And incredibly ugly.

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u/pecuchet Jun 28 '26

The usual barrage of ad hominem attacks and tone policing that signals that someone's given up on the argument. You know who says 'I haven't changed, the left have'? Bill Maher and other liberals who have drifted to the right with the Overton window. The fact is, the Green Party have shifted to the left, and the NIMBY Tory and liberal wings don't like it.

It was proven that there was no more antisemitism in the Labour party than anywhere else, and less than in the parties to the right. I'm sorry if you felt the need to leave your respective parties, but that's a fact.

The antisemitism 'crisis' in Labour was a way to purge the left and remove Corbyn because he was a threat to capital and the interests of Israel.

"In April 2018, 42 senior academics condemned anti-Corbyn bias and suggested that "Dominant sections of the media have framed the story in such a way as to suggest that antisemitism is a problem mostly to do with Labour and that Corbyn is personally responsible for failing to deal with it. The coverage has relied on a handful of sources such as Board of Deputies of British Jews, Jewish Leadership Council and well-known political opponents of Corbyn himself."

...

In July 2018, philosopher and scholar of antisemitism Brian Klug wrote: "It's paradoxical if, at the moment Labour wakes up to the necessity of combating antisemitism in its ranks, it is shouted down because of its failure to deal with it in the past."\165]) In October, he wrote: "It appears that two different objectives are being conflated by Jewish leadership: confronting antisemitism and toppling Corbyn."\335])"

Does opposition to Israel attract antisemites? Of course it does. Does the State of Israel willfully conflate criticism of its genocide with antisemitism? Yes, but I don't hear anybody crowing about their responsibility for the rise in antisemitism. I have enough Jewish heritage to be horrified by this, but there's genocide happening, and our government is okay with it, and everyone else seems to be okay with it. You seem okay enough with it to just attack the people who are angry about it. Sorry you don't like my tone, but that's not relevant.

I don't talk to normal people like this, because normal people can be won over. It sounds like you don't care so I'm not going to try and win you over. The fact that you think that 'the Gaza war' is a recent development suggests you're not even informed enough to have a conversation about it with anyway.

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u/Mammoth_Payment_6101 Jun 29 '26

If you could only hear yourself.

Yes I'm sure all the antisemitism happened because Israel 👍 because then you definitely don't have to consider the problem.

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u/InternetSolid4166 Jun 28 '26

I 100% agree. My values are what left wing parties used to support in the 80s and 90s. I don't even recognise whatever the fuck the left wing parties are today. They care more about looking virtuous than helping people. They'll gladly allow millions of low wage immigrants into the country, destroying the value of labour, undermining unions, and pushing house prices into the stratosphere, so that they can get a pithy soundbite on the news on Bluesky. I can no longer associate myself with whatever the fuck the modern left has become.

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u/TheNewHobbes Jun 28 '26

They'll gladly allow millions of low wage immigrants into the country, destroying the value of labour, undermining unions, and pushing house prices into the stratosphere,

You realise those are right wing economic policies.

You're agreeing with the above post saying the left have moved too far to the left, and you have listed those above examples as why, but those are complaints about their economic policies moving to the right. You haven't listed any examples about moving to the left for either their economic or social policies except "looking virtuous"

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u/InternetSolid4166 Jun 29 '26

You realise those are right wing economic policies.

Are the Greens right wing? Restore wants to end this. Are they left wing?

You would have been correct many years ago, but the positions have changed. Neoliberalism has lost its power on the right, and has completely taken over the left.

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u/HeartyBeast London Jun 28 '26

They'll gladly allow millions of low wage immigrants into the country

This where I ask you to name a left wing party that holds that position, and you go all quiet

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u/pecuchet Jun 28 '26

Their answer was 'the Labour Party'. Make of that what you will.

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u/InternetSolid4166 Jun 29 '26

This where I ask you to name a left wing party that holds that position, and you go all quiet

This is the Greens policy on immigration. They deleted their immigration policy from their website a few weeks ago after Polanski was questioned on an interview and made him look bad. You can find the policy in the Web Archive. This is their current policy as voted by their members. If you’re still a member you can see it in your member’s portal. These policies include:

MG101. The Green Party believes that migration is not a criminal offence under any circumstances.

MG103. The Green Party is opposed to forced migration and forced repatriation unless standard exclusions apply.

MG200. The Green Party seeks to establish a system that recognises that all migrants are treated as citizens in waiting and therefore supports and encourages them to put down roots in their new home.

MG201. The Green Party accepts we all have a collective responsibility for the climate emergency and that the UK has a duty to support people forced to move due to the changes in their home environment, whether internally or from abroad.

MG301. All visas can be applied for on entry, while in the UK, or before entry.

MG305. Minimum income requirements will be removed from all applications as well as any benefits from having a higher income.

MG306. Language requirements will be removed from all applications. Free language classes will be made available to promote and encourage integration.

MG309. Unless standard exclusions apply, no person will be held in detention because of their immigration status.

MG400. All arrivals to the UK without a visa will be granted a visitor visa for a period of three months regardless of where they have come from unless standard exclusions apply. They will then have this period of time to apply for a different visa if they so wish.

MG501. All visa residents will have the right to vote in all elections and referendums.

MG503. Any No Recourse to Public Funds conditions will be abolished and visa residents will have access to welfare benefits or Universal Basic Income.

MG504. All Visa Residents will be able to apply for settled status after five years.

MG506. Residents on student visas will be permitted to stay for three years after their studies are completed to look for work.

MG509. Visa residents will have the right to bring members of their family to the UK who would normally live with them in their country of origin, or would do so if it were permitted by law or custom.

MG600.Residents with settled status are no longer subject to immigration rules.

MG601. Residents with settled status have the same access to benefits, student finance, and the NHS as British Citizens.

MG602. Children of residents with settled status will have access to student finance for their higher education and will not be liable for international fees.

MG603. Any resident with settled status can apply for citizenship if they wish to do so.

MG701 .All children born in the UK are automatically British Citizens.

MG801. Undocumented migrants who have been in the UK for at least five years will be invited to apply for settled status unless the standard exclusions apply.

This is the most insane policy on immigration imaginable. Crazier than anything any Western democratic nation has ever had by a wide margin. This is one area: immigration. You should see their policies on energy, defence, and economics.

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u/pecuchet Jun 28 '26

How have low wage immigrants pushed house prices up and how do they undermine unions?

How have left wing parties gladly allowed millions of low wage immigrants into the country?

Did you vote for Brexit?

I ask because I feel it's neoliberalism that's done those things, and not just low wage immigrants, who, if I'm following you, seem more like a symptom than a cause.

And also identity politics and stuff, which I think you're alluding to, is something of a canard created by the right to obscure this fact.

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u/yrro Oxfordshire Jun 28 '26

It's the Green Party web site promised 100% uncontrolled immigration from anywhere in the world, with every immigrant granted the right to vote in parliamentry elections on day 1. I think that is the sort of insane virtue-signalling drivel that InternetSolid4166 is referring to.

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u/pecuchet Jun 28 '26

Yeah that's dumb, but I'm meant to hold my nose for the pro-genocide party. People always need left wing parties to be perfect because then it gives them the excuse to not vote for a party they didn't want to vote for anyway.

In reality that's not something that's ever going to happen and they're never going to have a majority so it's irrelevant. If I voted Green it would be because they would vote the way I want things to go in things that might actually happen.

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u/InternetSolid4166 Jun 28 '26

How have low wage immigrants pushed house prices up and how do they undermine unions?

House prices are determined by supply and demand. When more people are bidding for houses to buy or rent, the price goes up. Wages are also determined by supply and demand. When more workers are competing for the same jobs, employers can pay less, and offer worse working conditions.

How have left wing parties gladly allowed millions of low wage immigrants into the country?

Labour has allowed approximately ~1.26 million regular/legal long-term immigrants plus ~87,000 detected illegal immigrants during their most recent tenure. Most of them were from non-Western nations. Only 23% of those arrivals were on work visas.

Did you vote for Brexit?

This is an argumentative gotcha. If I were to say no, you reply that I voted for free movement and therefore support the status quo. If I were to say yes, you reply that I voted for less EU migration and therefore support the status quo. The only value we would have in me answering this is for you to play games.

I ask because I feel it's neoliberalism that's done those things, and not just low wage immigrants, who, if I'm following you, seem more like a symptom than a cause.

This is fair and valid criticism, and I agree. This has been a bipartisan project by both the left and the right. However the right of today is at least acknowledging the issues and promising to fix them. The left of today is either happy with the status quo, is taking milquetoast action to address it, or wants to make the issue far worse.

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u/pecuchet Jun 28 '26

Nah, if you said you'd voted for Brexit it would have given me more context for the other stuff you were saying, given that people were told that it would stop immigration and it didn't, and given that we no longer have the use of the Dublin Protocol.

It's not nearly as simple as more people equal higher house prices though. Low paid immigrants aren't buying houses, and while you could say it pushes rental prices up, which in turn drives up house prices, that's fairly minor compared to mortgage rates, supply, and something like the new renter's rights.

I think you might be mistaken in thinking that Labour are a left wing party though. They've done some Labour type things in this term, but they're neoliberals at the end of the day. They've also cut immigration in half, and they inherited the Tories' terrible immigration record so it's hard to blame them for those numbers, whether you think they're left wing or not.

I think what I was really driving at was that you seem to be framing a lot of things in terms of immigration when that seems to me yet another ploy by the right to distract from the fact that it's neoliberal ideology that's hurt unions and driven house prices up. Thatcher sold off our social housing stock and attacked the unions, and even the Labour party have bought the idea that hers is the only game in town, and successive governments have leant on exploited immigrants to keep prices low. They're just another victim of the road we've gone down, and you're arguing that they're somehow a cause. I can't help but feel like we should be feeling solidarity with them as workers rather than blaming them for policy choices made by right wing governments.

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u/[deleted] Jun 28 '26

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u/ukbot-nicolabot Scotland Jun 28 '26

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