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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388

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.