Corbyn forces MP to quit over sex gang claim
JEREMY CORBYN last night forced one of his senior shadow ministers to resign after she claimed that some Pakistani men groomed and raped young white girls. Sarah Champion, the Labour MP for Rotherham and former shadow secretary for women and equalities, was asked to resign after she wrote an article in The Sun warning that more must be done to stop gangs of Pakistani men targeting young girls.
She urged the Government to investigate why so many men who share the same cultural background are behind bars for abusing young girls. One notorious grooming gang was exposed in Ms Champion’s constituency town.
But following the Labour leader’s demand, Ms Champion stepped down last night. A source close to Mr Corbyn
confirmed he had requested she leave his top team, adding that her comments were not appropriate.
Last night Ms Champion apologised for her “extremely poor choice of words” and said she was concerned that continuing in her shadow cabinet role would distract from the “crucial issues” around child protection. A source close to the MP said her article had been stripped of “nuance”, though a Sun spokesman said Ms Champion’s team had approved her column.
Critics said the Labour MP had been hounded out and punished for telling the truth about the issue. Mr Corbyn was accused of showing “Stalinist” tendencies for demanding his shadow minister resign. Trevor Phillips, the former chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said: “I am absolutely gobsmacked. This is not the Labour Party I know, even in the darkest days I don’t remember people being asked to stand down for trying to represent their constituents, which is what I think Sarah Champion was trying to do. We shouldn’t have to have an argument about free speech, what this feels like is what we used to call democratic centralism in the Labour Party, in other words Stalinism.”
Rebecca Hilsenrath, the Equality and Human Rights Commission chief executive, said: “It is this climate where problems cannot be frankly discussed and tackled, that led to neglect, for so long, of the victims of these terrible crimes.”
Writing in The Sun, Ms Champion had said: “Britain has a problem with British Pakistani men raping and exploiting white girls. There. I said it. Does that make me a racist? Or am I just prepared to call out this horrifying problem for what it is?
“No more. These people are predators and the common denominator is their ethnic heritage.”