Golding’s goons get it wrong about Rotherham again

Another day, another dollar! That’s the Britain First philosophy and it shows. They know that fear and hatred are big money-spinners and Biffers milk any hint of division and paranoia for all it’s worth.

Yesterday afternoon they posted another rehashed old post about child sexual exploitation in Rotherham. As if the beleaguered South Yorkshire town hasn’t had enough of these lying scumbags and their religiously motivated modern ‘blood-libel’. But their timing was a little awry yesterday.

They’d have done better to ignore Rotherham altogether rather than remind people of their role in creating and maintaining tensions in the town. Yesterday was the day that Dale Jones (30) was convicted of the racially-motivated murder of Mushin Ahmed (81). We await the verdict in respect of co-defendant Damien Hunt, also aged 30.

Discretion has never been a Biffer virtue though, a fact that was ably demonstrated when they posted this yesterday afternoon.

Although the Britain First introduction describes the 6 as a Muslim grooming gang, two of those convicted (yes – that’s a full 33%) were British born white, non-Muslims. It’s funny how the Biffers neglected to make that point in their headline. It’s almost as if they want to give a false impression.

Also on the same day that the Biffers posted the above Facebook meme, S. Yorkshire police and Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council issued statements about the long-term investigation that has only just completed its report. You can read the MBC statement here, including the part about not letting people use the tragedy to divide their community.

You can also read S. Yorkshire police responses to frequently asked questions (FAQs) here. In particular notice the statement about ethnic background of perpetrators.

Let’s just restate that for the hard of understanding. 10% of the perpetrators were Asian (not necessarily Muslim). 72% (more than 7 times as many) were of Northern European racial origin. That means White, by the way. The same pattern emerges all across the UK.
To put it another way – there is a very real problem with child sexual exploitation in this country. And a particular race of perpetrators features very highly in the crime statistics. It’s also a very gender biased crime with the vast majority of perpetrators being male.

The solution then is obvious.

Let’s send all the white men back to their countries of origin.

That’s not as crazy as it seems. There won’t be a single white Brit whose ancestry can’t be genetically determined to hail from mainland Europe or even Africa. If we want to stop child sexual exploitation on British streets – send all the white men back to Africa!

Of course, we don’t seriously want to suggest forced repatriation of anyone to their ancestral country (or continent) of origin but it does highlight just how ludicrous it is to blame an entire race (or religion for that matter) for a problem they hardly feature in at all.
If we’re going to tackle child sexual exploitation in UK we need to take a leaf out of Rotherham’s book and do what they’ve been doing for the last couple of years. We need to tackle it together without getting distracted by over-generalised and wrong assumptions about race or religion.

Let’s start by rejecting those divisive fools who would exploit the victims further for their own political and racist ends. Let’s challenge the hateful rhetoric of Britain First and their kind whenever we come across it and let’s make sure that the people who peddle this poison know exactly what the rest of us think about them.

We can tackle child sexual exploitation if we do it together.

United we stand. Divided we fall.

No pasaran!

Rotherham’s white grooming gangs?

Although we have always disagreed very strongly with Britain First’s idea about how to deal with child sexual exploitation in Rotherham we, like so many others have always accepted the reports that the majority of the offenders were men from ethnic minority groups, and that a significant proportion of them were of Pakistani origin.  So many news reports, so many politicians and so many senior policemen made the same claim that it seemed very credible.

This June an extremely interesting reportwas published. Entitled ‘The Way Forward for Rotherham it was produced by the Rotherham local safeguarding children’s board and it makes harrowing but fascinating reading. This report casts doubt upon the popular narrative, going so far as to suggest that 68% of offenders in Rotherham were actually white British. That’s a very far cry from the media narrative about ‘Muslim grooming gangs’ and a powerful slap in the face for the racially motivated ‘campaign’ from Britain First to oppose all UK Muslims because of Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandals. According to the report…

“The number of offenders, including suspects, were mainly White”

Yes, we know – we were fooled too. But let us say that again – just so you get it…

“The number of offenders, including suspects, were mainly White”

But don’t just take our word for it. Read the report for yourself if you like. It’s here.

Or have a look at this

“..the Crown Prosecution Service’s lead on child sexual abuse and violence against women and girls, tries to offer a calm perspective. Unruffled by mounting media hysteria over the ethnicity of abusers in Rotherham, he suggests stepping back and taking a wider view of the nationwide picture of child sex abuse.

His role means he has oversight of all child sex abuse cases in England and Wales. “So I know that the vast majority of offenders are British white male,” he says, setting the number at somewhere between 80 and 90%. “We have come across cases all over the country and the ethnicity of the perpetrators varies depending on where you are … It is not the abusers’ race that defines them. It is their attitude to women that defines them.” “

Of course, we don’t imagine there are hordes of white British child sexual exploiters roaming Rotherham’s streets any more than there are hordes of Asian Muslims doing the same. We do think that it’s important that any such headline is responsible – hence our somewhat ironic reference to ‘white grooming gangs’ which we hope might expose the equally prejudicial use of the term ‘Muslim grooming gangs’.

The report states that 24% of the perpetrators were Asian, let alone Muslim. We compared this to the demographic breakdown of Rotherham’s population and it does, genuinely seem disproportionate. The 2011 census (a representative date for the offences under consideration) shows a Muslim population of 3.7%.

Rotherham’s combined Asian population numbers around 5.6%.

The total BME population is 8.1%.

That means that Asians were over-represented by a multiple of 4 (give or take) in the figures released last June. However – they do not represent a majority of perpetrators and they most certainly do not represent the entire Asian population (or even the entire Muslim population).

So what does all this mean?

First of all it means that any organisation that is genuinely concerned about protecting children really ought to focus its resources on more than a minority of offenders. By focusing exclusively upon Asian Muslims (assuming that the recently published figures are accurate) Britain First ignores over three quarters (76%) of Rotherham’s child sexual exploitation. Additionally, they ignore the non-Muslim Asians who presumably make up a very significant proportion of the remaining 24%.

But – for simplicity’s sake let’s forget the obvious problem that Asian doesn’t necessarily mean Muslim and assume that all of the Asian 24% were Muslims. Rounding the figures up that means that a grand total of 17 of the 71 repeat offenders in these ‘grooming gangs’ would have been Asian Muslims. Of course the true figure would be less than that but we want to keep the sums simple.

At the time of the last census Rotherham had a total population of 257,280. Muslims made up 3.7% of that figure. That equals a total of 9,520 Muslims living in Rotherham. Even if we assume that all 24% Asian perpetrators in Rotherham were indeed Muslim (statistically very unlikely) that means that approximately 0.2% of Rotherham’s Muslim population is known to be involved in child sexual exploitation. That’s approximately 1 in 500.

Let’s put that another way… 99.8% of Rotherham’s Muslims are not involved!

Of course – that still leaves the problem of the 0.2% of Rotherham’s Muslims who have been involved in some way with child sexual exploitation. That involvement, according to the report, ranges from online grooming and ‘inappropriate relationships’ to procurement and actual rape. These are all significant crimes and all the offenders deserve to be prosecuted but it’s not at all the image Britain First likes to portray.

The impact of far right and neo-nazi intervention

Of course there can be no justification for the fact that the officials in Rotherham ignored the problems of child sexual exploitation that were reported to them. But it does appear that their fears about further exploitation by neo-nazi groups were well-founded.

Those fears seem to have been understandable given the way that far right groups like Britain First, the English Defence League, the National Front, UKIP and the BNP have exploited the situation for their own, divisive ends. It seems that the authorities in Rotherham were very aware of the way that Britain’s neo-nazis had capitalized upon similair revelations in Derby and elsewhere and were desperately trying to prevent its repetition.

There does appear to have been a very real problem in Rotherham and quite possibly elsewhere. But it’s not the fault of the 99.8% of British Muslims who played no part in child sexual exploitation. It’s the fault of the offenders themselves and the leeway afforded them by an overly defensive local authority and an overly sensitive police establishment who, in part because of fears about the far-right’s reaction, avoided the issue.

What’s the truth?

To be fair, we genuinely don’t know how accurate or representative even these figures are. It seems that as more information comes to light the picture of what happened in Rotherham keeps on changing. Perhaps we’ll never know for sure.

What we are certain about is this…

The problem of inadequate official responses to child sexual exploitation and related crimes will not be solved by targeting a minority of offenders, ascribing their criminal tendencies to all members of their ethnic group and then persecuting the innocent. That has merely diverted police time and money away from the real perpetrators and distracted public attention from the real problem. There is no point in attacking 99.8% of a minority group because of the actions of 0.2% of their number. Unless of course your motivation has nothing to do with protecting children at all.

Child Sexual Exploitation is a problem for us all. It impacts upon all our communities and we all need to be aware of it, of how to protect our own children and of how to best help others. None of us benefit from divisiveness, least of all the children. Perhaps it’s time for the far right to put away their flags and megaphones and join in the work that needs to be done to protect children from abuse?

We’re sure that many of Britain First’s supporters are as upset and concerned as the rest of us. Child sexual exploitation really IS outrageous but if experiences in Rotherham and Derby have shown us anything it’s that over the top condemnations of entire groups do nothing to solve the problems we all face. On the contrary they just make it more difficult for those in authority to address their localized problems openly. If only those BF supporters who actually care about these children could come to the table (and the library!) and try to help instead of hurling abuse and flags all over the place it might make a difference!

But that wouldn’t help Britain First’s wider cause. It wouldn’t help them to demonise and alienate UK Muslims. It wouldn’t help them sell their trashy merchandise and con donations out of their supporters. And that’s why the likes of Folding Golding and Dutchy Fransen will never stop fuelling division and prejudice. For them it’s not about child protection – it’s about profit.

We don’t believe that Britain First cares a damn about Rotherham’s children.

We believe that they care only about exploiting their trauma still further in a shameful attempt to further their own neo-nazi cause.

We also believe that the vast majority of the good people of Rotherham and of the wider UK can see right through their shallow, divisive and racist agenda.

Update 11/8/2015

Oh look. They’re at it again. This time in Blackburn. Have these people no shame?

The ‘Muslim paedo’ myth

Britain First is great at jumping on bandwagons. Arguably that’s all they ever do (apart from beg for money). One of the most common bandwagons they board as readily as the rest of us hop on to public transport (goose-stepping up the ideological bus like the bunch of demented Biffers that they really are) is the ‘Muslim paedo’ myth.

You know the one – this is the myth that would have you believe that there are no paedophiles outside of Islam and no Muslims who aren’t paedophiles. This is the myth that all Muslims are either paedophiles or paedophile enablers. This is the myth that anyone who opposes Britain First is a paedophile lover. This is the myth that says that there would be no paedophile problem in the UK without Muslims. This is the myth that would have you believe that UK paedophiles didn’t exist until 1997 when immigration ‘began’ at the behest of Tony Blair. This is the myth that tells you this stuff just didn’t happen – it couldn’t have – it didn’t involve Muslims and it was going on long before 1997.

John Broomfield (RCO Biffer)

If Britain First was really interested in dealing with paedophilia then they’d address the real problem head on. They’d do something constructive to help like support victims charities or child protection organisations. But they’re not really interested in child protection. That’s why they ignore white paedophiles and even promote them within their own organisation. Let’s not forget that the RCO Biffer, John Broomfield is himself a convicted paedophile.

It’s interesting that we haven’t seen Broomfield in any of the Britain First pics or videos recently. He hasn’t been at any of the rallies or meetings as far as we can tell. Maybe he was just too embarrassing for this group of ‘anti-paedo’ campaigners. Maybe they just quietly got rid of him. They certainly haven’t issued any statements about him. It almost smells like a cover up. Hang on though – isn’t that the sort of sneaky move they criticise others for?

We don’t know if Broomfield has gone or not. We do know that until EBF started exposing the sex offender in their ranks Britain First’s Biffers had no problem taking orders from an RCO who was also a convicted paedophile – so long as that paedophile was white. It’s almost as if they’re really just a bunch of hypocritical racists. Not that anyone would ever believe that!

The reality is that paedophilia is a problem throughout society. It’s been present for decades, perhaps centuries and it exists amongst all ethnic and religious groups.

The Biffers would have you think that child abuse is about Muslims. We would have you do a bit of research yourself. It really doesn’t take much time on google to learn just how stupid this myth really is.