Corbyn was wrong to force out Champion, says Blunkett
JEREMY CORBYN was wrong to force the resignation of Sarah Champion over her claims that groups of Pakistani men are raping white girls, Lord Blunkett has told The Daily Telegraph, as he challenged Labour to confront the is- sue “head on”.
The former Labour home secretary said that it is a “great shame” that Ms Champion left her role as shadow women and equalities minister.
“It’s the kind of issue I hope the Labour Party would be able to take head on, not least given our history in terms of equality, women’s rights and overcoming historic and unacceptable attitudes towards women,” he said.
“I think it’s a great shame that Sarah has felt the need to stand down.”
But last night, the Labour leader stood firm, denying that there is a particular problem of Pakistani men grooming white girls and adding it was wrong of Ms Champion to suggest this is the case.
He warned that grooming cases are happening across the country and that no one culture should be singled out.
Ms Champion resigned after being asked to do so by the Labour leader. It followed an article she wrote in The Sun in which the MP for Rotherham warned politicians should not be afraid to discuss the relative high number of sexual exploitation and grooming cases against Pakistani men in the UK.
Mr Corbyn said yesterday: “Much crime is committed by white people, crime is committed by people of other communities as well. I think it is wrong to designate an entire community as the problem.”
Lord Blunkett, who as home secretary worked to make grooming a specific offence, likened the situation to the criticism of Ann Cryer, a former Labour MP who exposed grooming gangs in the early 2000s. He said: “Sarah needs to take comfort in the fact that Ann Cryer got the same kind of blowback and that white men, including of my generation, need to be prepared to give her the widest possible support.
“We have to presume from her decision to stand down and the acceptance of that decision that support has not been forthcoming from the very generation I’m referring to – mine.”
Meanwhile, a survey of 4,923 people by Yougov last night found said 39 per cent agreed that Ms Champion “raised awareness of the issue in the right way and should have stuck to her guns”.
What is the point of the shadow secretary of state for women and equalities if not to stand up for women? And yet Sarah Champion MP has been forced to resign from her role for doing just that. Nothing better illustrates Labour’s divorce from reality and who it claims to represent. Ms Champion’s crime was to write that “Britain has a problem with British Pakistani men raping and exploiting white girls”. She was obviously referring to a tiny minority within a minority. Nevertheless, in Ms Champion’s constituency of Rotherham, it is believed that around 1,400 girls were abused from 1997 to 2013, and it is not racist to note that the culprits were mainly Muslim men of South Asian origin. It was cowardly to refuse to tackle these crimes for fear of being called racist. One researcher who tried to raise the alarm was sent on an ethnicity and diversity course.
Finally the truth is out. The Home Secretary has said that “political and cultural sensitivities” must not get in the way of fighting child abuse. Trevor Phillips, the equality campaigner, wrote in this newspaper that it was time to “call a spade a spade… without embarrassment”. So the fall of Ms Champion shows just how out of touch with mainstream opinion Labour has become.
Jeremy Corbyn presents himself as a champion of the poor and the oppressed, yet he has lost a member of his team who was actually trying to stand up for the poor and the oppressed. Under his leadership, Labour is the prisoner of politically correct lobbyists, of the very culture that surrendered young women to abuse rather than acknowledge stubborn and troubling facts.