Sarah Champion: Rotherham MP defends her grooming gangs comments

The former Shadow Women and Equalities Secretary was forced to quit her frontbench role last month after a backlash for saying: “Britain has a 
problem with British Pakistani men raping and exploiting 
white girls”. The Labour MP used an interview with The Times to highlight differences in 
attitudes between the capital 
and Labour’s Northern heartlands.

After her resignation Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn – an MP in Islington, north London – said his party would not “blame” or “demonise any particular group”.

Ms Champion told The Times: “If I’m on the floppy left, to be accused of racism is probably the worst thing you can call me.

“That fear will motivate me to step away from a lot of topics I’d maybe tackle head-on if I didn’t have that phobia.”

Her constituency was the scene of a grooming scandal and she said that many Labour members and politicians 
based in London had “never 
been challenged by a reality 
that’s different” from their 
largely “tolerant, multicultural 
world”.

“London is not representative of the UK and it’s definitely not representative of the North of England in relation to race,” she said.

“Rotherham and many post-industrial towns are still segregated.”

Ms Champion stressed: “It’s not that Yorkshire is racist,
it’s that Yorkshire is very blunt and doesn’t sugar-coat 
anything.

“In Rotherham, people’s frustration is that if they all knew what was going on, why didn’t the people who were meant to protect them do anything about it?”

Ms Champion’s comments about “British Pakistani men” came in a column in The Sun last month, leading to her resignation and an apology.