The Edinburgh terrorist attack and the dangers of the “Muslim Grooming Gangs” trope

By Varun

Content Warning: Mentions Sexual Violence, Gun Violence, Racism, Misogyny, and Islamophobia from the Outset

“I’ve told you time and time again, I am protecting the country from these fucking Muslim bastards, raping our young daughters, raping our kids. Enough is enough. I have had enough.”

These were the disgusting words uttered by Lewis Hakes, a 36-year-old white Scottish man after he was arrested by the police for injuring five men with a knife on 19 June, 2026, in the streets of Edinburgh. Two 22-year-old men were attacked outside the Broomhouse Mosque after leaving prayers and three other men aged 24, 27, and 39 were attacked in the Telford Road and Leith Walk area before he was finally arrested._[1]This horrific attack has left the British Muslim community in a state of fear and panic as it is the latest escalation in the rising Islamophobic hate crimes sweeping through the UK.

The British establishment’s feeble response to the attack

This attack got very little media coverage and an almost total silence from the political establishment. While Kier Starmer and Kemi Badenoch did condemn the attack, their response was very feeble when compared to the Golders Green attack back in April, when two Jewish men were horrifically assaulted. Nigel Farage and Reform UK have maintained complete silence, illustrating their total contempt for Muslim life. It should be noted that after the Golders Green attack, the UK government held a COBRA (Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms) meeting about the rise in antisemitism and Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage demanded the ban of Palestine solidarity demonstrations opposing Israeli genocide and apartheid.

The media coverage of the Edinburgh attack was also disgracefully abysmal. According to The Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM), the Golders Green attack received around 20 times more online news coverage than the Edinburgh attack. For example, GB News published 63 stories on the former and just one article about the latter.

While GB News is far right, apparently liberal publications were similarly imbalanced in their reporting. The Guardian just published two stories about the Edinburgh attack, compared to 32 for Golders Green. The CfMM also found that TV broadcasters gave the London incident around seven times more coverage than the one in Edinburgh. It was also noted that the two Jewish victims of the Golders Green stabbing were identified and interviewed by media outlets, whereas none of the five victims of the Edinburgh stabbing was named or interviewed._[4] The message from the British establishment is clear: Some victims matter more than others.

The “grooming gangs” controversy and Rupert Lowe’s flawed report

Just days before the Edinburgh attack, the leader of the far-right Restore Britain and MP of Great Yarmouth Rupert Lowe published a deeply flawed “Rape Gang Inquiry” report. That report published widely debunked statistics about child sexual abuse and explicitly names the religion of Islam as the root cause of the grooming gangs scandal. The report further spreads the repeated lie that most perpetrators are of “Pakistani Muslim heritage”. According to the Ministry of Justice and the Office for National Statistics, 88% of defendants prosecuted for child sexual abuse offences in England and Wales in 2022 were white, slightly higher than their representation in the general population (83%). British Pakistanis made up of 2% of the defendants and they are 2% of the general population._[2]

Police corruption and institutional failure also played a major role in these hideous scandals. In 2014 Alexis Jay’s Independent Inquiry into Rotherham concluded that Police, councillors and social workers refused to provide protection and safety when youth workers told them and instead protected the rapists. Police labelled victims “trash” and accused them of having made a “lifestyle choice” by taking gifts or engaging in sex work, blaming them for the abuse and even prosecuting some of them for minor offences._[3]It was very convenient for the police to later claim that they didn’t catch the perpetrators out of “fear of being accused of racism”. The Police in the UK are not exactly paragons of social justice. Statistically you are far more likely to be stopped and searched if you are black and referred to the PREVENT anti-terrorism programme if you are Muslim.

The racialisation of ‘grooming gangs’ must also be understood in the context of a long history of racialised and gendered Islamophobia, or anti-Muslim racism. Muslim men have been stereotyped as both religiously fanatical and prone to committing violent, sexual acts motivated by a patriarchal, misogynistic culture and backward, barbaric religion._[11] Sexual abuses carried out by Muslim/Pakistani offenders are explained in terms of race and culture, whereas their white counterparts’ crimes are framed as individual deviance.

Labour and Tory politicians’ cynical exploitation

Both Labour and Tory politicians whipped up anti-Muslim prejudice by using the grooming gangs scandals to advance their careers. In 2011, when two men of Pakistani origin were convicted of rape and sexual abuse of young children by the Nottingham Crown Court, the then Labour MP of Blackburn made inflammatory comments on BBC Newsnight, declaring that “But there is a specific problem which involves Pakistani heritage men… who target vulnerable young white girls.” He then added that Pakistani men see white girls as “easy meat”._[6]But it doesn’t stop there, fast forward to 2017 and current Labour MP of Rotherham wrote an article in the Sun newspaper titled “Britain has a problem with British Pakistani men raping and exploiting white girls”._[7] While Sarah Champion was forced to resign from the Labour front bench over this article, Jack Straw faced no such scrutiny. Either way, the damage was done and the Labour party played a huge role in racialising child sexual abuse.

The Conservatives in the UK are an institutionally Islamophobic political party despite calling themselves the “Moderate Right”. In a 2019 survey conducted by the anti-racism group Hope Not Hate produced some alarming results. 57% of the party members had a negative view towards Muslims and almost half of them believed that Islam is a threat to the British way of life._[8]Many senior politicians in the Tory party used the grooming scandals for cynical purposes.

In 2014, the then Home Secretary Theresa May made dog-whistles about “political correctness” getting into the way of investigating the grooming gangs._[9]Former Tory MP Nadine Dorries once tweeted “how about ‘it’s time to act on sex abusing gangs’ instead? #TelfordGrooming #Rotherham.” in a response to a tweet from London Mayor Sadiq Khan claiming to tackle hate speech. But these dog whistles escalated to straight-up Islamophobia under the government of Rishi Sunak. Rishi Sunak launched a “grooming gang” task force and again falsely implied that authorities weren’t tackling child sexual abuse because of “political correctness”. His government’s Home Secretary Suella Braverman went to Sky News and said on live television that “all child grooming gangs were British Pakistani” and wrote a column on the right-wing rag Daily Mail. Months later, even the UK’s useless press regulator Ofcom issued a correction on her wrong statement_[10]but by this time the damage had been done.

Media’s role in promoting the “muslim grooming gangs” trope

Right-wing media outlets have systematically reported on the issue of child sexual abuse in an Islamophobic and racist manner. It was during 2011, when The Times published a column titled “Revealed: conspiracy of silence on UK sex gangs” which spread a racist firestorm across the UK. It should be noted that Andrew Norfolk was accused of shoddy journalism multiple times in his career and also once falsely claimed that the Islamic Human Rights Commission Trust was taxpayer-funded.

The likes of the Sun and Mail have published inflammatory articles like “RAPE HELL: Asian grooming gang made two vulnerable girls in Rochdale ‘sex slaves’ after preying on them from age of 13, court told” and “Britain’s Asian grooming gangs scandal laid bare: Interactive map reveals shocking extent of predatory men who sexually abused young girls across FORTY ONE UK towns…” which reinforced that notion that child abuse rings are predominantly British Muslim men. Articles like these fuelled anti-Muslim hate, while not putting the focus on the broader issue of child exploitation.

The media also focuses only on child abuse rings in Oldman, Telford, Rochdale, and other northern English towns which have a sizeable Muslim population while completely ignoring child abuse rings in other parts of the country. There were numerous child abuse rings operating in places like Walsall, Glasgow, Bristol, etc. The reason? The perpetrators were White English.

The media also promoted false and cherry-picked statistics to present child sexual abuse as a uniquely “Muslim problem”. The most notorious example of this was when the now defunct Quilliam Foundation, a right-wing think tank released a report falsely claiming that 84% of grooming gang offenders were Asians and almost exclusively Pakistani-Muslim. This was splashed across all newspapers when it was published initially but months later it was debunked by the Home Office’s own report that confirmed research has found that group-based offenders “are most commonly White”. Dr Ella Cockbain, a researcher on child exploitation, pointed out in her criticism of the report by Quilliam, “the more ‘grooming gangs’ are seen as a Muslim problem, the more a ‘counter-extremism’ think-tank stands to gain.”_[12]

The far-right’s hypocrisy over CSE

It should be to no one’s surprise that the far-right would exploit the scandals at Rochdale, Telford, and Rotherham to spread anti-Muslim bile. During the 2000s, the fascist British National Party (BNP) was racialising child sexual exploitation in depressed deindustrialised towns by presenting it as a “Muslim Issue”. It was similar to the moral panic in Australia around that period about “Lebanese Sex Gangs” being a threat to White Australia._[13]After the Times’ expose in 2011, Tommy Robinson (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) founded the notorious English Defence League (EDL) and often held demonstrations outside courts and mosques targeting the Muslim community.

Since then, ‘Muslim grooming gangs’ have become a staple of far-right propaganda in the UK and beyond, forming a key ‘mobilising trope’ of the pan-European Counter-Jihad Movement and “Anti-Love Jihad” movement in India. Overtly Islamophobic terms like ‘rape jihad’ play to fears of invasion and ‘cultural replacement’. Tommy Robinson was invited to the Czech parliament to speak about the dangers of “Muslim Grooming Gangs” and recently has been embraced by Elon Musk and the Trump administration.

But the far-right have no interest in tackling child sexual abuse. Since the formation of the EDL at least 20 members and supporters have been convicted of child sexual exploitation (CSE) offences._[14]Tommy Robinson himself was convicted of contempt of court after breaching reporting restrictions at a major CSE trial in Huddersfield which almost collapsed a trial.

Nigel Farage, the current leader of Reform UK, exploited the Rotherham grooming gang scandal during the 2014 Heywood and Middleton by-election. The same Nigel Farage called serial misogynist and alleged human trafficker Andrew Tate as “An Important Voice for Men”. Back then, when he was in UKIP (United Kingdom Independence Party), issued leaflets about Labour’s “love affair” with “immigration, political correctness and multiculturalism” for the betrayal of “white working-class girls”. This was condemned by the main prosecution’s witness’ father itself_[15] but that didn’t stop UKIP from exploiting CSE to promote an Islamophobic agenda. In 2018, UKIP spokesperson Alan Craig claimed that the grooming gang scandal could be “traced to the Prophet Mohammed himself” and that it was “a holocaust of our children, of our daughters.”

These incendiary statements faced little to no pushback from Labour and Tory politicians while the right-wing media continued to promote CSE as a “Muslim Problem”. This emboldened the far-right not just in the UK but across the world.

The international far-right’s cynical use of women’s rights

The far-right in the UK, EU, Australia, USA, and India depict Muslims as a civilisational threat. The anti-Muslim climate after the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent “War on Terror” allowed the far-right to promote Islamophobic talking points under the guise of national security, animal rights, and women’s rights. Talking points like “Muslim birth rate” and concerns about veils and halal slaughter helped to radicalise a lot of young men into joining far-right extremist groups. But the most defining feature of the International Far-Right is to present Muslims as a menace to the safety of women and girls.

The capitalist crisis of today has made the system more reliant on women’s unpaid labour in the home and even more fixated on their reproduction. Around the world birth rates are declining; some of this is due to personal choice, but also many cannot afford to have children. This poses an issue to capitalism; which needs new generations of workers to exploit, and also younger generations to care for aging populations. Immigration could offset these issues, but immigrants offer a convenient scapegoat in a system that is increasingly failing working class and poor people of all races. Dogwhistles about the Great Replacement, myths about Muslim men being more violent have nothing to do with actual care for women and children, and everything to do with racism. While most people who espouse these ideas do not have the interests of the capitalist class in mind, in reality they are doing their bidding – letting them off the hook for our collective suffering by creating a boogeyman out of immigrants.

Just like the grooming gangs’ scandals in the UK, CSE has been racialised and politicised across the world. In Finland, the far-right demonises Muslims as a threat to the nation based on three high profile sexual abuse cases. In France, Muslim Arabs and Africans are often portrayed as a menace to girls and women by the far-right National Rally. In Australia, after a series of rapes during the 2000s, the far-right twisted the political discourse and framed Muslim immigrants as a threat to “Australian Values and Girls”. In Northern India, Hindu Nationalists promote the debunked “Love Jihad” myth, where Indian Muslims are supposedly honey-trapping non-Muslim girls and converting them to Islam to wage a demographic war on the nation. Several north Indian states where Hindu nationalists are in power have implemented “Anti-Love Jihad” laws which criminalise Muslim men in Interfaith relationships.

The most sinister intervention in the grooming gangs’ scandal in recent times has to be from Elon Musk. In January 2025, after Musk faced backlash from the MAGA crowd for calling them “hateful unrepentant racists” after some Republican officials were against issuing more H1B visas_[16] for immigrants from China and India to work in the American Tech Industry. Blindsided by the backlash, he turned his attention towards the grooming gangs scandal in a desperate attempt to win back the support. He called for the British King to dissolve the parliament, promoted extremely anti-Muslim tweets, and declared his support for the serial convicted criminal Tommy Robinson. Musk’s faux concern about child sexual abuse would be taken more seriously if didn’t spend almost half a billion dollars in helping Trump (a man accused of sexual harassment by 30 women) elected and if he wasn’t named multiple times in the Epstein files._[17] Nevertheless, the likes of Farage and Kemi Badenoch joined the chorus and demanded a national inquiry in the grooming gang scandal. And the spineless Labour government decided to conduct more inquiries about CSA instead of implementing the recommendations of the 2022 Alexis Jay Report.

Far-right terror attacks incited by the “muslim grooming gangs” discourse

In 2015, an 81-year-old Mushin Ahmed was killed by two racists. Ahmed’s killers stomped on his head, causing fractured eye sockets and brain damage, while verbally abusing him and calling him a “groomer”._[18]
In 2017, Darren Osborne drove a van outside the Finsbury Park Mosque in London and murdered 51-year-old Makram Ali. Darren Osborne was radicalised by Tommy Robinson, Britain First, and the BBC drama “Three Girls” which was based on the Rochdale grooming gang scandal._[19]
In 2019, Brenton Tarrant killed 51 Muslims at two mosques in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand in the deadliest shooting in the country’s history. He had the words “For Rotherham” written on ammunition that he used in the massacre, in an apparent reference to the grooming gang scandal in Rotherham._[20]
In 2021 at London, Ontario, Nathaniel Veltman murdered 5 Pakistani Muslims by running over a truck on them. He was radicalised online by watching videos about “Muslim Grooming Gangs”._[21]

Here in Ireland, during late 2025, a right-wing extremist group planned to attack the mosque in Galway claiming that they were doing to take a stand against “the poor treatment of children, women, and elderly”._[22] Just this year a mosque was firebombed in Limerick, and another mosque was attacked in Dublin. The far-right in Ireland frequently collaborate with the international far-right especially with the British far-right. Kildare Councillor Tom McDonnell took part in the Anti-Muslim “Unite The Kingdom” rally organised by Tommy Robinson in London during May 2026. Tom McDonnell also posted a vile letter to Donald Trump in his social media post demanding an end to Muslim immigration and advocating mass deportations of Muslims living here._[23]Taking inspiration from their other Anglosphere counterparts, the far-right in Ireland are increasingly tapping into Islamophobia to promote their hateful agenda. The worrying trend is that even supposedly “centre-right” parties like Aontú and Independent Ireland are also tapping into this form of bigotry.

Racialising sexual violence fails the victims

Sexual violence is a horrific crime and is unfortunately rampant in our societies. In the year ending March 2019, the police in England and Wales recorded 73,260 sexual offences where there are data to identify the victim was a child._[24]The abuse was most likely to have been perpetrated by a friend or acquaintance (37%); around a third (30%) were sexually abused by a stranger. The media’s extended focus on “Grooming Gangs” has placed an idea in people’s mind that most CSA is carried out by gangs, but the opposite is true. In 2023, group-based child sexual abuse accounted for 3.7% of all reported sexual offences. Of this number 26% took place within the family, and 17% in grooming gangs. So, in total, 0.60% of all CSA were carried out by “gangs”._[25]

The overwhelming focus on “grooming gangs” has led to victims of other forms of CSA being neglected. A study of over 9,000 CSE service-users in the UK found that nearly one-third of the victims were male and around one in five are from ethnic minorities. Mainstream services often overlook groups like ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+ children and those with disabilities, who can face particular challenges and barriers to disclosure, like additional stigma or fear of ‘shaming’ their families due to the “Muslim Grooming Gangs” narrative._[26]

Some fringe Sikh and Hindu groups in the UK have taken offense to the term “Asian Grooming Gangs” and have asked the government and media to be more accurate in their reporting by asking them to call it “Pakistani Muslim Grooming Gang”. This approach is highly problematic because it only contributes to the further racialisation of CSA. These groups made dangerous claims about grooming gangs targeting Sikh and Hindu girls because of their religion but there is no evidence to those claims. _[30]The better approach would be to stop associating any group be it Asian or Pakistani Muslim to “grooming gangs” and deal it as a CSA issue instead.

How capitalism fails the victims of CSA

Looking beyond the rhetoric of successive governments about “Grooming Gangs” and “protecting women and children”, the measures implemented to tackle CSA are grossly inadequate. One of the less discussed parts about CSA is how cuts to essential public services undermine efforts to tackle the issue. The Tories and Labour have implemented austerity measures which led to underfunding of children’s services, social care, healthcare, specialist charities and grassroots projects, and criminal justice agencies. Sexual violence services report long waiting lists for counselling and support. Victims of child sexual abuse routinely face long delays in the criminal justice system, which can be “extremely distressing”._[27]

Rishi Sunak’s government, especially the then Home Secretary Suella Bravermann falsely racialised CSA by framing it as an issue where white girls need protection from Pakistani Muslim men and that fear of political correctness failed the victims but both Rishi Sunak and Suella Bravermann have no qualms in voting for austerity policies which have failed the victims of CSA. Sunak also launched a “grooming gang taskforce” which was focused more on soundbites and playing gallery to their bigoted voter base than helping victims. Most of the focus is on tackling CSA as a “law and order” issue but experts have pointed out that it is more complex than that. It focused solely on encouraging mandatory reporting, collecting more data on ethnicity and religion, implementing tough sentences, and offering more support to The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) helpline but does nothing about reversing the brutal cuts to public services or tackle prevention.

The Labour government has launched inquiries about “Grooming Gangs” in Oldham, Bradford, London, etc. _[28] Feeling pressure from the far-right they have also stressed taking data on ethnicity and religion of perpetrators despite studies proving that most cases of CSA happen at home, and the perpetrator knows the victim. Instead of implementing the seven-year national statutory inquiry (the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, IICSA, 2022) chaired by Professor Alexis Jay, a child protection expert, which included data about 7,000 survivors the Labour government is more interested in chasing headlines and pandering to the far-right instead of tackling CSA.

The real failure is multiple neo-liberal capitalist governments failing to implement the 20 recommendations of the IICSA. This is part of a much broader challenge in public inquiries. They are considered the gold standard for independent investigations – particularly in cases of state failure. But in practice, there is little in place to ensure that their recommendations are taken on. Time and time again, the victims and survivors who were involved in inquiries must take on the role of campaigning for change. _[29]

The entire system of capitalism is predicated on exploitation and profiteering. Safety of vulnerable people from abuse is not a consideration for such a system; in fact it’s a system which fuels a culture in which gender-based violence and child sexual exploitation is normalised. Abusive billionaires are rewarded with wealth and power while ordinary people fight tooth and nail for essential public services. Such services will always be under siege by the capitalist system which does not care one iota for the safety or wellbeing of victims and survivors. The fight against this culture, and the fight for a society which uses its wealth to invest in essential services rather than allow it to be stolen by a billionaire class, must be a fight for a socialist alternative to capitalism.

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