Embarrassment for Keir Starmer as Labour mayor Andy Burnham defies PM to call for rape gangs inquiry

LABOUR'S Andy Burnham has demanded a national inquiry into child rape gangs in open defiance of Sir Keir Starmer.

The Manchester mayor tonight broke with his party to call for a new probe into the grooming scandal.

His intervention piled more pressure on the PM after he blocked a Conservative attempt to force an investigation.

Despite ordering his MPs to vote down the Tory bid, Sir Keir, his deputy Angela Rayner, Chancellor Rachel Reeves, Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Health Secretary Wes Streeting were all absent.

Downing Street blamed diary clashes and insisted the Cabinet Ministers had not ducked the vote to avoid the public backlash.

Mr Burnham attacked Tory “opportunism” but called on the Government to launch a probe for the sake of victims.

He told the BBC: “I will add my voice into this and say I do think there is the case for a limited national inquiry that draws on reviews like the one that I commissioned, and the one we have seen in Rotherham, the one we have seen in Telford, to draw out some of these national issues and compel people to give evidence who then may have charges to answer and be held to account."

Mr Burnham said the flaw with local inquiries - which Sir Keir has proposed - is the inability to force witnesses to appear. He admitted: “That is something I couldn't do at my level.”

Tory Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said politicians and officials who hushed up child rape gangs for years must face their “day of reckoning”.

He told The Sun’s Never Mind The Ballots show: “I want to know who covered this up.

“I want to know who failed these victims by being negligent, by disbelieving their accounts. I want to see a day of reckoning for those people who did not do their job properly.”

He admitted Elon Musk’s relentless social media posts had “raised the salience” of the horrors by largely Pakistani-heritage men that shook northern towns.

A No10 spokesman said: “We will be guided by the victims, and what we've heard from the victims is that they don't want to see another national inquiry.”