Five women have called on Nigel Farage to apologise after he implied they were not victims of grooming gangs.
The survivors described the Reform UK leader’s remarks as “humiliating and degrading”, accusing him of displaying a serious “lack of understanding” about their experiences.
In a letter sent to Keir Starmer last week, the women said they would continue serving on the government’s grooming gangs inquiry panel only if safeguarding minister Jess Phillips remained in her role and if the process allowed all those whose evidence is considered relevant to take part.
However, on Monday, Farage suggested that the women had experienced other forms of child sexual abuse rather than being targeted by grooming gangs.
A statement from the women said this had left them “feeling like we have to defend ourselves and prove that we are victims again”.
The women said: “Nigel Farage should apologise. What he said about us is categorically untrue, saying we shouldn’t be on the panel because we are watering it down and we are survivors of other abuse, not grooming gangs. We are survivors of grooming and grooming gangs.
“Farage’s lack of knowledge and assumptions about our experiences as victims and survivors of grooming gangs proves he should not have a platform to make decisions about us or our input.
“His ignorance and untrue statements about us, our experiences and the validity of our involvement, his lack of understanding or care to look into our lives to make sure what he was saying was true, has meant he has dismissed people who this inquiry is for.”
In what sparked the letter, Farage said: “Five of the grooming gang victims, those that feel insulted, have withdrawn from the inquiry, but you’ll be told there are five who insist that Jess Phillips stays in place and that the inquiry continues.
“But here’s the truth about the other five. There are two very distinctly different groups of young people who are sexually abused and raped by adults.
“And what has happened with this inquiry is the government have, quite deliberately, from the very start, widened the scope out from those who were victims of Pakistani grooming gangs and brought in other women.
“I’m not demeaning or diminishing in any way the treatment that [they] have been through. I’m just pointing out they were victims, survivors now, of a very different kind of sexual abuse.”
Reform UK has been approached for comment.