>> tonight is me christopher hopein >> tonight is me christopher hope in for nigel farage on gb news as we celebrate the working class sport of darts, we'll be asking our middle class gastropubs killing off the arrows and i'll be revealing a surprise. great darts champion. i should say that the champion is in fact me. here it is. i won this contest with the paddy power prostate cancer uk, westminster darts championship just about eight weeks ago, but more of that later. been great fun to try and get involved with that. as the labour party refuses to launch an inquiry into the scourge of grooming gangs that have plagued this

country for decades, are they failing the very same women and girls they promised to protect? in just one moment, i'll be speaking to the shadow home secretary and asking why the tory government didn't establish their own public inquiry when they had a chance, and campaigning to raise funds for a memorial to the royal navy's role in ending the slave trade. or having trouble finding a landowner to site the memorial. and sir keir starmer faces a difficult new year after 20 of his local councillors quit, saying the prime minister has abandoned labour values. are we speaking exclusively to the leader of that group of the rebels on this programme shortly? all of that to come. but first the news with samuel francis. >> chris, thank you very much indeed. good evening to you. just coming up to 7:02, first to the united states, where the fbi says it does now believe the man

behind the deadly new year's day terror attack in new orleans acted alone. shamsuddin jabar, an army veteran, killed 14 people and injured dozens more after driving his pickup truck into crowds. the 42 year old, who was shot and killed by police, had posted online pledging allegiance to the islamic state group. the fbi says it's now reviewing hundreds of hours of surveillance footage and over 400 public tip offs. the identities of the victims, including a former princeton football star and an aspiring nurse, are still being confirmed. well, meanwhile, a deadly explosion outside the trump hotel in las vegas is also being investigated. but at this stage, the fbi say there is no definitive link to the incident in new orleans. well, that blast caused by a tesla cybertruck filled with fuel canisters and fireworks killed the driver and injured seven others, though their identities remain undisclosed. the fbi's director

has confirmed. the investigation is now underway, but says it's in its very early stages in the wake of the attack, incoming president donald trump took to his social media platform, truth social, blaming the nation's open borders and vowing to stop the chaos under his leadership. elon musk has ramped up his attacks tonight on sir keir starmer, amid growing pressure on the government over its handung on the government over its handling of the grooming gang scandal on social media. the billionaire suggested safeguarding minister jess safeguarding ministerjess phillips deserves to be in prison, he said. it comes after she insisted it was for oldham council alone to launch an investigation into child exploitation. between 2011 and 2014. meanwhile, conservative leader kemi badenoch is calling for a full national inquiry into the issue, saying justice for victims is long overdue. a group of 20 labour councillors has quit the party today, accusing sir keir starmer of abandoning traditional labour values. the group, from broxtowe borough

council, have formed a breakaway independence group with 100 members and a county councillor also leaving labour. in response. the remaining labour councillors in broxtowe say they're extremely disappointed but pledged to continue working for local residents. suspected people smugglers could soon face travel bans, phone restrictions and social media blackouts under new government proposals. ministers are introducing interim serious crime prevention orders to impose immediate restrictions while courts review full orders. the move follows a sharp rise in small boat crossings last year, with over 7000 more migrants arriving than the previous 12 months. labour says the powers will tackle vile gang networks. but the shadow home secretary, chris philp, told us earlier it won't make any difference. >> this is the same government, of course, the same labour party who voted against life sentences for those very same gangs when they were in opposition and on their watch since the election. now, six months ago, illegal

immigration across the channel has gone up by 29% compared to last year. and i think it was a huge mistake of labour to scrap the rwanda deterrent before it even started. the first flight was due to take off on the 24th of july, and labour cancelled it before that plane had a chance to leave. and i think if that had started then we would see the numbers dramatically reducing and the uk is bracing for a blast of arctic air, with cold weather alerts across england and snow forecast for much of the country this weekend. >> the met office has issued warnings for snow and ice spanning england, wales and scotland, with saturday expected to be the coldest day as temperatures plunge below freezing. severe snowfall could also bring up to 40cm in higher areas like the pennines, causing potential travel, chaos and power cuts. those are the latest headlines. i'll be back with you in an hour. now though, it's over to christopher hope for the very latest gb news direct to

your smartphone, sign up to news alerts by scanning the qr code or go to gbnews.com/alerts. >> now. labour has come under fire after refusing to hold a pubuc fire after refusing to hold a public inquiry into historical sexual abuse by grooming gangs in oldham. the world's richest man, elon musk, attacked the decision as disgraceful, while kevin badenoch said a full national inquiry into rape gangs was long overdue. jess phillips, labour's safeguarding minister, insisted it was for oldham council alone to decide whether an investigation into alleged exploitation between 2011 and 2014 should be launched. joining me now is gb news national reporter charlie peters, who has broken the story today and done so much work into it. charlie, welcome to gb news of course.

>> hi trevor. good to be with you. >> are you surprised by the fact that the labour government is refusing to order a public inquiry? >> no, i'm not, because the precedent is there for local inquiries to take place. so in many ways, oldham, having their own sort of government led response, would be an exception to the rule that's taken place for the best part of a decade. now we've had the rotherham report, the telford report, both led by local investigators in telford. there was the crowther report and in rotherham, alexis jay led her own team. but another reason why it's not surprising is because i imagine it would throw up plenty of pretty concerning things for labour to reflect on, in part because they've been in charge of that borough for a long time up until may of this year. but also, i mean, reflecting on this decision to not push forward for a government led inquiry. i mean, we can reveal that jess

phillips made this decision in october, but the request went in in july. i think one of the main problems that the minister for safeguarding has is that she ignored this request for over three months and had to apologise very deeply in her letter, which this channel has seen exclusively. when she reached out to the executive of oldham council. so it is a troubling story for labour. but isuppose troubling story for labour. but i suppose what they didn't expect and what i didn't expect when i wrote the story, is that it would spark this almost international conversation. we've had elon musk getting involved in this story, but also the conservative party now calling for a national inquiry across all of the towns and cities in great britain where this has been a problem, which is a pretty remarkable thing to say after a one labour minister says no to just one town having a public inquiry. but yeah, it's a public inquiry. but yeah, it's a it's an extraordinary response to, to that scoop. >> and you mentioned there all

those different local inquiries that have been done. is there a tipping point at some point in which it's worth doing a national overview report? because then you allow, you know, people who are independent of all the different characters involved, and also connecting the dots between the different towns in the north, mainly in the north—west of england, where the north—west of england, where the issue has been particularly heartfelt. >> yeah, chris, one of the reasons why there's been this vote and this demand for an independent inquiry is that the survivors in the town were not impressed with that 2022 review that was conducted locally by the greater manchester combined authority. as you said in your intro, it was just from 2011 to 2014. the terms of reference they felt weren't sufficient. now, that review found no evidence of a widespread cover up, but it did reveal extraordinarily appalling things, including 151