Labour MP accuses Ukip leader of rubber-necking after damning report on handling of child sex abuse allegations in the town

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Nigel Farage has been forced to abandon a public appearance in Rotherham amid protests and accusations of “rubber-necking” at victims of child sex abuse.

The Ukip leader was due to cut the ribbon on the campaign office of the parliamentary candidate Jane Collins, but his team said he was not coming out of the building on police advice.

Farage said he was the victim of trade union-funded bullying, while a party spokesman branded a 40-strong group of demonstrators “hardline Socialist Workers”.

The local Labour MP, Sarah Champion, said Farage’s visit amounted to rubber-necking, after a damning report on the mishandling of child sex abuse allegations led to the government taking over the functions of the council this week.

“Hilarious Nigel Farage is trapped inside the Rotherham Ukip shop by people objecting to him coming to rubber neck at victims!” she tweeted.

Farage denied he was exploiting what had happened to stir up racial divisions. “We’re the one party that’s warned consistently against division within society and multiculturalism and we’ve warned against it for years,” he said.

“We want interculturalism. We’ve got different religions and faiths but we have to mix together and we have to live under one law. So I think to accuse us of exploiting it is not fair. We have warned for years that things have been going wrong with increasing divisions within society.”

Ukip has 10 councillors in the town and it is one of the party’s main target seats in the north in May’s elections.

The protesters were peaceful but noisy, many of them carrying placards saying “Reject Ukip lies” and shouting that Farage was not welcome in the town. Farage was later escorted out of the office by security and police into a waiting police car.

Farage repeated his party’s call for the whole of Rotherham council to face re-election in May, rather than waiting until next year.

A Ukip statement said: “These protesters aren’t the real people of Rotherham. This is the Labour party running scared and trying to shut down any voice of opposition.

“They are just people who are trying to stifle democratic debate. Surely they should be directing their anger at those who presided over the industrial scale of abuse in this town, rather than those who are trying to change it for the better.

“They are more interested in keeping power than serving the people, which is what led to the cover-up.”