here we go. labour won't do anything about grooming gangs because they are scared of muslims. next. >> very good evening to you from the newsroom just after 9:00. the top story tonight. the fbi now believes the man behind the deadly new year's day terror attack in new orleans did act 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 before the attack, 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

tonight. elon musk has ramped up his attacks on sir keir starmer amid growing pressure on the government over its handling of the grooming gang scandal. on social media, the tech billionaire suggested that safeguarding minister jess safeguarding ministerjess phillips deserves to be in prison. it comes after she insisted it was for oldham council alone to launch an investigation into child exploitation. meanwhile, the tory leader, kemi badenoch is calling for a full national inquiry into the issue, saying that justice for victims is long overdue. a group of 20 labour councillors has quit the party today, accusing sir keir starmer of abandoning traditional party 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 are extremely disappointed by the move, 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. a murder investigation or inquiry is now underway in london after a man injured in a christmas day car attack in the west end has died. aidan chapman passed away on new year's eve after a car drove on the wrong side of shaftesbury avenue, hitting four pedestrians. the 25 year old's parents say they are utterly devastated, describing him as loving, kind and funny. a 30 year old man has been charged with attempted murder, causing serious injury while disqualified from driving and possession of a knife. police

are now urging for witnesses to come forward and the uk is bracing for a blast of cold arctic air and wet wintry weather alerts across england, with snow forecast for much of the country into the weekend. met office warnings for snow and ice span england, wales and scotland, with saturday expected to be the coldest as temperatures plunge below freezing and severe snowfall could bring up to 40cm of snow in higher areas like the pennines, causing potential travel, chaos and even possible power cuts. wonderful news. those are the latest headlines for now. i'll be back with you in an hour 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. >> gbnews.com/alerts. >> good evening. labour are going to do absolutely nothing

about the grooming gang epidemic because they don't want to offend the muslim community. now i want to warn you. in fact, i need to warn you that we are discussing child sexual abuse. and i need to say to you that this is going to contain some very distressing content, including quite graphic details of child sexual exploitation and violence before the election. jess phillips labour's jess phillips was running her mouth off. >> we're a year on from the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse. years and years worth of evidence. rishi sunak is doing nothing. and today, exactly what had happened in rochdale is happening in every single part of our country. >> well, now that same jess phillips is in a position of power at the home office, and she has just rejected a national inquiry into rape gangs. well, why do we think that is.7 i inquiry into rape gangs. well, why do we think that is? i mean, i've got a little theory. >> oh, yeah. go on lad. just

watching. >> okay, so that's rochdale police station there. and that was what appeared to be anyway, muslim men who were egging it and doing all sorts of stuff there in the wake of the alleged manchester airport incident. so i think that labour might be a little bit afraid of aspects of the muslim community. and i think to that i say, though, you're pathetic because when you read reports about a girl as young as 13 being gagged and gang raped, in other cases men would have their names on a list by a door, and then they went inside and they'd rape a child and they'd put a tick by their name, and they would pay it off at the end of the month. a girl is believed to have been killed, cut up and put in kebabs before

presumably being fed to members of the british public. these people are monsters, all right. but the tories are unfortunately just as guilty as the labour party because kemi badenoch came out and called for a national inquiry. all right. but then the tories themselves actually did refuse an inquiry several years ago. they had 14 years to try to get this stuff right. now, i don't actually think either of them care. they've not demonstrated that the people of rotherham, rochdale, keighley, oldham, oxford, aylesbury, newcastle, blackpool, they've not demonstrated to them that they care. have they really. we made a massive deal over the infected blood scandal. more than 30,000 people in the uk were given treatments for infected with hiv, hepatitis c or hep b. the post office scandal 900 subpostmasters were prosecuted, but right across the country, pakistani men have been

raping thousands of mostly vulnerable young working class white girls for decades. it was a bigger national scandal than anything else as far as i'm concerned. i think it's time to have a full, independent national inquiry. let's get your thoughts on my panel this evening. i am joined by tory peer lord bailey. we've also got journalist linda jubilee and former labour party adviser matthew laza as well. look, sean, i want to start with you on this. in the next hour, i'm going to be asking you a little bit more about whether there might be some kind of cultural issue when it comes to some of these grooming gangs. let's focus on the actual inquiry aspect of it. do you think we should have a national inquiry into it? >> jess phillips said it herself in a statement. you played she talked about it's happening in every part of our country. so the idea that she can say it's the idea that she can say it's the council's job and she's probably passing the buck. and when she spoke about it, she used it as a political football. she used it to undermine rishi sunak. fine. but then in order for that to be an authentic statement, she now needs to step

up and do it. and what's interesting is she is the minister. it would be very easy for her to say yes. i think she's done something very silly here because i have to believe that she wants to sort these things out. she could have put this well beyond the politics. she could have said the tories started the investigation. they didn't do enough. i want to do more and got on with it. but now she's going to suffer years and years and years of people saying, you're doing this, you're doing this for your own political survival. and i think just just from a personal point of view, she shouldn't be doing that. >> anyone could have seen this coming as well. it's a great point that you make there because her seat where it is, is it yardley, birmingham, yardley that has got a large muslim population. she had huge issues when it came to the whole gaza stuff that was going on there. and if you put someone like her on a seat like hers in charge of an issue like this, then unfortunately she might not want to investigate it because she'd be worried about losing the muslim vote. >> yeah, which is 600. she's only got a 600 vote majority in that constituency. that's got to be behind this. it's absolutely shameful what's gone on here.

absolutely shameful. i can't believe it. i mean, as a young reporter like this is decades ago because i'm much older now. but on the mail on sunday, i used to be 1509