Young people in the UK have waited long enough, their plight can not become a tool of the far-right
Labour and Starmer must ignore the Musk-bait and focus on delivering a better future for the children of today and tomorrow
You might think this week’s big news is about Elon Musk, Nigel Farage, or Keir Starmer. You’d be wrong. Beneath the noise of power struggles lies a serious issue: the UK’s systemic neglect of its children—a failure that has been cloaked and twisted by the far-right to fuel divisive narratives.
Over the weekend, Musk used his platform on X to highlight the grooming gang scandal, attacking home office minister Jess Phillips for refusing a statutory inquiry into the issue and accusing her of being a “rape genocide apologist.” Musk also claimed Starmer was complicit and called him to be imprisoned. His comments not only spread gross misinformation and endangered two UK politicians, but they also diverted much-needed attention from the issue at hand, reducing it to a political football between the left and the right.
At its core, the grooming gang scandal reflects a systemic failure of the UK to protect its children. These incidents, spanning decades and counties, were enabled by a litany of failures from authorities tasked with safeguarding vulnerable children. Instead, entrenched classist and sexist attitudes perpetuated a culture of neglect. Voiceless, vulnerable children were left abandoned.
In 2022, Alexis Jay completed a landmark inquiry into child sexual abuse in the UK, exposing the sheer scale of the crisis. One estimate suggested that over 500,000 children experience sexual violence in the UK every year. Jay’s inquiry offered a forensic, evidence-based roadmap for addressing the problem: mandatory reporting of abuse, a cabinet minister for children, public education campaigns to dismantle harmful myths, and a slew of local authority reforms. Yet, her findings were largely ignored by the Conservative government. Only after Musk’s incendiary comments did Labour commit to upholding these recommendations in full—a reactive, rather than proactive, step.
The truth is that successive UK governments have failed—and continue to fail—children at every level. Child sexual abuse represents the most acute end of the spectrum, but the broader picture is equally grim. UK children are among the unhappiest in Europe. More than one in three lives in poverty. They face crumbling schools, overcrowded housing, worsening physical and mental health, and a reliance on unregulated social media that delivers bullies directly into their bedrooms. Youth clubs have vanished, while the cost-of-living crisis makes even public spaces inaccessible. And, as they grow up, they face skyrocketing tuition fees, stagnant wages, and an intractable housing crisis.
Politicians have ignored these realities because children, lacking political and economic capital, are easy to sideline. But this negligence is shortsighted and morally indefensible.
At the Resolution Foundation’s “A squeezed middle of the decade? The political economy outlook for 2025” event today, former Cabinet Secretary and peer Gus O’Donnell offered a refreshing, much-needed perspective: a vision of “building better lives,” grounded in improving the well-being of future generations.
He underscored the deep concerns parents have about their children’s mental health and happiness, urging policymakers to focus on making families feel their lives are truly improving. “What parents feel is: 'my kids are really not happy', the mental health crisis we're having, and all the rest of it. They've got to start addressing this idea of, how do we actually make people feel their lives are better, and that's going to be through children.”
Labour has an opportunity to transform the country’s trajectory. Millennials were the first generation to fare worse than their parents in terms of living standards, and Gen-Z faces an even bleaker outlook. Yet Labour, despite some initial missteps, has shown a willingness to prioritise long-term policymaking over short-term political expediency.
By shifting focus from catering to older, wealthier voters toward championing the needs of children and young people, Labour could define itself as the party of the future.
To seize this opportunity, Starmer must go beyond broad policies like planning reform and green energy investment, which, while valuable, are slow to yield visible results. Real progress starts with immediate and tangible improvements in children’s lives—reforming education, tackling child poverty, rebuilding youth services, and implementing Jay’s recommendations in full.
The question for Labour is not just whether they will prioritise children but how far they will go to secure their futures. Young people in the UK have waited long enough, their plight can not become a tool of the far-right. Won’t somebody, finally, think of the children?