The Stockton Council Meeting motion on grooming gangs, tabled by Tory councillors continues to make waves. The motion, passed at full council meeting on Wednesday 22 January, called on the Labour council leadership to press for a nationwide inquiry into grooming gangs.
The motion neglected to mention that the recommendations of two previous inquiries (both chaired by Professor Alexis Jay) were ignored by the then Tory-run central government.
Nor was there any mention of Home Secretary Yvette Cooper’s announcement just a few days before the council meeting of a fund of £6mn to finance six local inquiries into grooming gangs.
The uproar did not remain confined to the council chamber: Tory Stockton West MP Matt Vickers took to Facebook with a list of Labour councillors who had voted against the motion.
His comments were bolstered by a series of Facebook ads bought by Stockton Conservative Party. Each of the ads – posted on 25 and 26 January – named the Labour councillors in specific wards who had voted against the Tories’ motion.
According to the Facebook/Meta ad library, each ad cost less than £100 but had an audience reach per ad of between 100,000 and 500,000.
Another Stockton Conservatives ad named Labour’s Stockton North MP Chris McDonald as voting against a nationwide inquiry at the House of Commons.
Of concern was not only the list of councillors that Vickers posted who voted against the motion, but the pile-on of abusive comments by Facebook users attacking the councillors. Words such as “paedophiles” and “kiddie-fiddlers” were used. Vickers has not scrubbed his post or the comments.
The Stockton Conservatives’ ads are still active, according to the Facebook/Meta ads library.
Fallout
The result is that one councillor has been subjected to a verbal assault while others have been harassed at their own front doors.
The police have been informed, and councillors have been advised to have security or police in attendance at their ward surgeries. Their home addresses had already been removed from the council website before the meeting.
North East Bylines has learned that the councillors are very worried about their safety.
Stockton councillor Katie Weston commented on Facebook:
“We are all incredibly on edge at the moment, over this. The continued drip feeding of posts isn’t helping that. I’m really worried about physical harm coming to one of us over this.”
News of the post and incidents has spread to parliament. Redcar’s Labour MP Anna Turley tells us she has lodged a parliamentary complaint against Vickers for endangering his constituents.
On Tuesday 28 January in a point of order Chris McDonald addressed the House of Commons about the Facebook-based harassment. He said that Vickers “has used social media to link councillors who voted against a new national inquiry with grooming gangs.”
He questioned whether Vickers was fit to continue in his role as Shadow Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire.
McDonald has also written a letter to Vickers quoting one of the Facebook comments which ran:
“I really want to boot the fuckers from my property, in fact, I hope people find out where they live and start persecuting them.”
McDonald continued:
“In one instance, a woman dedicated to public service was terrorised at night in her own home by individuals hammering on her door…
“Despite these events I understand that you and your local party have continued to run paid advertisements – targeting the same councillor – and indeed others.”
McDonald urged Vickers to publicly condemn the attacks; remove his post; cease further attack ads; and apologize to all Stockton councillors mentioned in his post.
Stockton – and especially Yarm which is within its boundaries – is regarded as the Tees Valley’s Tory heartland, even retaining a Tory MP at the last General Election.
Councillors at the other Tees Valley councils (Middlesbrough, Redcar, Hartlepool and Darlington) have told us there are no similar motions on their council agendas.
Further north, a motion for a national grooming gangs inquiry was on the agenda at Sunderland’s council meeting but the session ran out of time and it was not debated. Councillors there expect another Facebook attack after the motion is discussed at their next meeting.
There are indications that this is a nationwide smear campaign against Labour, deploying the horrors of grooming gangs to the Tories’ advantage.
Also in the Facebook/Meta ads library is an ad by the national Conservative Party.
With an image of Keir Starmer, the ad reads, “Do you think there should be an inquiry into rape gangs? Keir Starmer doesn’t.”
The ad, still active, cost between £7,000 and £8,000. It has reached an estimated audience of one million.
The national and local Conservative ads as well as Vickers’ have the same design. They all carry a link to a petition demanding a national inquiry.
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