Sir Keir Starmer’s last-minute U-turn on Thursday confirms two things. Number one – it proves that the Government can move mountains in a matter of hours when it wants to. Number two – the Prime Minister cares more about football than keeping women like me safe in Britain’s streets.

On Thursday, Shabir Ahmed, the 73-year-old ringleader of the Rochdale grooming gang convicted of child rape, was released from prison after serving just 14 years of his 22-year sentence. This rightly sparked public outrage as he is protected from deportation by the 1971 Immigration Act. Then, just hours later, Sir Keir announced that pubs and bars across England and Wales could stay open until 5am on Monday for England’s World Cup match against Mexico due to emergency legislation. It’s shocking.

Despite being stripped of his British citizenship, Ahmed cannot be sent back to Pakistan. He is shielded by a half-century-old loophole in the 1971 Immigration Act, which protects Commonwealth citizens who arrived in the UK before 1973.

One of the survivors of the grooming gang, known as Ruby (not her real name) and who was sexually abused from the age of 12, said she was “scared for her safety” and that of her children after learning the news that this monster would remain in the UK.

Why then did Sir Keir not try to pass emergency legislation or use executive powers to close this loophole before Ahmed walked free? Downing Street released a statement on Thursday calling Ahmed’s crimes “particularly heinous” and “one of the darkest moments in our country’s history”. A spokesperson said: “We are absolutely clear that where foreign nationals commit offences in the UK, we will do everything in our power to remove them.”

Why, on the same day that the state was apparently paralysed by this apparently unfixable legal loophole to keep a child rapist in the country, it took them less than 12 hours to buck national licensing laws so the public could drink past dawn?

As a 25-year-old woman, this spectacular display of warped priorities feels deeply insulting. Don’t get me wrong – I enjoy a drink as much as the next twenty-something, but you won’t catch me staying out until 5am in today’s Britain (And frankly, I’m much more of a Wimbledon fan anyway).

More importantly, I care infinitely more about the safety of women and girls in this country than I do about anyone’s right to buy a pint at sunrise.

The events of Thursday prove a damning point. Starmer’s Government will deploy the full power of the state for bread and circuses, but treats the safety of women and girls as an afterthought. Emergency legislation should be reserved for matters of profound moral urgency – like ensuring a notorious grooming gang ringleader is expelled from the country the moment he leaves his cell. Instead, the Prime Minister treats an immigration loophole as an unfixable law of nature, while treating pub opening hours as a national emergency.

I’m clearly not the only one whose eyebrows have been raised by this. Restore Britain’s leader and MP for Great Yarmouth, Rupert Lowe, shared similar comments on Facebook: “‘Emergency legislation’ to keep the pubs open for the Mexico match is great, but can we please do the same to deport Pakistani child rapists?”

When a genuine moral test arrives, the Prime Minister’s priorities are laid bare. His actions send a chilling signal to the victims of the Rochdale gang: that an all-night football party is worth bypassing standard parliamentary process for, but their safety and peace of mind are not.