On Friday 43 women’s organisations published an open letter voicing our disgust at Tommy Robinson’s pledge to donate his MEP salary to victims of sexual abuse if he is elected in the north-west of England. We are calling on voters throughout the region to reject him.

We thought long and hard about potentially giving Robinson – whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon – further publicity and initiating a fight that he and his thuggish friends probably want to have. But we can no longer stay silent as he makes lies about the sexual abuse of girls his main campaigning and recruitment message.

The far right has a long history of seeking to incite racial hatred by whipping up fear about who has access to and control over women’s bodies. Rather than address the reality of rape and sexual assault in every community, and our collective failure as a society to intervene and to believe and protect children, the far right go mercilessly for a deeply patriarchal sense of entitlement related to the “protection” and control of women’s bodies. It is incendiary and reckless and supposed to induce fear and hate.

This messaging simultaneously makes the safety and very bodies of women and girls of colour invisible – because it is seemingly only white girls’ bodies that need protection, even though black and Asian girls have been significant among child sexual exploitation victims. And it also presents sexual abuse as being the preserve of predominantly street-based “grooming” gangs, when this is only one form of organised, predatory child abuse. It sits alongside online groomers and the most common kind of abuser: the male relative or friend of a family who is able to establish the trust of a victim and anyone who might look out for them. We don’t hear Robinson and pals calling for justice and protection for these children.

The idea of far-right men presenting themselves as defenders of women’s rights is absurd. These thugs are never the natural defenders of women’s equality and sexual freedom, or allies in the fight against gender stereotypes and misogyny. They are more likely to want a return to an extremely traditional idea of a family, with a powerful man at its head and a homemaking woman in the kitchen. Far-right and “alt-right” groups have also often had links with anti-abortion campaigners.

Meanwhile, as they persist with their racism-inciting rhetoric on rape, survivors’ groups and women’s rights activists, many of whom have spent their lives fighting for victims of abuse, are pushed back. It is profoundly insulting.

At the moment, some of our precious services are going to the wall, and we need help and support from all elected people, community leaders and more. But we will never, ever take your money Tommy.

• Sarah Green is co-director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition