Sarah Champion Is Right, UK DOES Have A Problem With Pakistanis Raping White Girls: Maajid Nawaz

17 August 2017, 11:35 | Updated: 22 August 2017, 09:53

Maajid Nawaz said Sarah Champion was right to say that Britain has a problem with Pakistani men raping underage white girls.

The Shadow Equalities Minister resigned yesterday, saying she had made a bad choice of words in her article for The Sun.

But Maajid, himself a British Pakistani Muslim, said it's important to tall about it and he would have gone further than she did in the piece.

The Labour MP had written: "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?"

It's unfortunate that Sarah Champion's column was actually headed "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?"

Speaking on his LBC show, Maajid said: "Clearly she wasn't prepared to call out this problem for what it is because she had to resign afterwards, for penning that column, from Labour's front bench. I think that's ridiculous.

"This is a definite, clear and present problem facing our country. How do I know that?

"Well let me start with this. Only three percent of the United Kingdom's population is composed of people like me, British Pakistani Muslims, probably less than three percent. About four percent of this country is Muslim. Around three percent or less is South Asian Muslim, people like me. And yet according to 2011 figures, 28% of these rape gang cases are involving South Asian Muslims.

"That's what we call disproportionate. There is a disproportionate problem with rape gangs in this country coming from people like me and my cultural background. That is something we simply have to talk about.

"Sarah Champion's constituency, where she's representing people in South Yorkshire, was the home to more than 1,400 hundred child victims of sexual exploitation between 1997 and 2013. A report into this grooming scandal, this rape scandal, found quote almost all of the perpetrators were of Pakistani origin.

"We simply cannot pretend this problem doesn't exist and try and bury our heads in the sand."