Nigel Farage reiterated his call for a national inquiry into grooming gangs as he addressed Reform UK's North West conference.

The Reform UK leader had been introduced by Elizabeth Harper, a survivor of child sexual abuse in Rotherham, who also called for a national inquiry.

Mr Farage said: "Unless we get to the bottom of what has happened here, to understand the full extent and scale of what has happened here, to understand the motives of those who perpetrated these crimes - which frankly I believe are more than likely to be deeply racist in nature - unless we confront this head on, we are never going to have a path to stopping it."

Describing the Jay review as a "shotgun approach", he said: "This needs to be a rifle shot that deals with grooming gangs, predominantly of Pakistani origin" abusing mainly white working-class girls.