Let me say it again clearly, and then ask the Labour party what part of this they want the voters of South Yorkshire to forget: for 16 years under the control of a Labour council at least 1,400 young girls in Rotherham were trafficked and raped by gangs of men, mostly of Pakistani origin.

During those years, local Labour officials and police ignored the pleas of working class parents and allowed the rape of children to continue because the local Labour establishment were afraid of being called racist if they intervened.

Labour ignored what was going on because, as one of their former MPs has put it, they did not want to “rock the multicultural boat.” That was code for Labour wanting to protect their core Pakistani vote in Rotherham. Therefore they did nothing about reports that hundreds after hundreds of young girls were enduring gang rape and sexual slavery by men of Pakistani origin.

Labour abandoned the children of Rotherham and protected paedophiles instead.

Labour must want the voters to forget some or all of that, because when UKIP states those facts during this election for South Yorkshire’s new police commissioner, Labour politicians call us “despicable.”

When we remind voters of the failure of Labour politicians to protect children, Labour say UKIP are “exploiting victims.”

Labour are trying to stop UKIP stating these facts: “These were girls of 11 and 12. They were children. The violence was worst. Petrol dousing was used as a form of intimidation.”

Except it was not anyone in UKIP who said that, it was Professor Alexis Jay, the author of the official report into the Rotherham child sex abuse scandal. No doubt Labour would like to smear Prof Jay as “despicable,” too, if they dared.

It was Labour’s “cultural sensitivity” about their Pakistani vote which allowed men to exploit 1,400 children. That is why Labour don’t want UKIP to remind voters of the facts.

Denis MacShane, who was Labour MP for Rotherham between 1994 and 2012, when he resigned over an expenses fraud for which he was later imprisoned, has denied anyone ever came to him in all his years as Rotherham MP about child abuse allegations. He now makes the excuse that: “Nobody pursued Jimmy Savile, nobody pursued Rolf Harris.”

Then he mumbles that he could have done more “to burrow into the problem.” He admits only: “I think there was a culture of not wanting to rock the multicultural community boat if I may put it like that.”

But Rotherham was not the first time Labour have shown blindness towards child abusers. In 2009 the BBC learned that he Labour Party paid a convicted United States sex offender more than £2,500 to help it with its 2005 election campaign.

American Tim Russo was a visits co-ordinator in the East Midlands for Labour. According to the BBC, this Labour “activist” was convicted in 2002 of trying to arrange sex with someone he thought was a 13-year-old boy. “The person he met online was in fact an FBI officer investigating internet paedophiles. Russo had sent him pornography and was eventually found guilty of importuning (harassment) and attempting to disseminate matter harmful to juveniles.”

Labour, echoing MacShane, made the excuse that no one told them about Russo before they paid for him to come to the UK, so they didn’t know.

All of which is why UKIP’s poster of a young girl alone above the one line, “There are 1,400 reasons why you should not trust Labour again,” has left the Labour party with no reply but smears and a demand that UKIP stay silent and not repeat the facts.

UKIP knows that each of those more than 1,400 young girls deserved protection from the Labour council, and UKIP knows not one of those 1,400 received protection. Labour failed 1,400 individual children time after time after time. The voters must not forget that. Certainly the local activists in Rotherham who felt “absolute rage” over events urged UKIP to press ahead with the poster.

Labour don’t want the poster to be seen by anyone because the poster presents the facts of Rotherham in a single line. Which is to say, Labour don’t want anyone to remember the facts. They don’t want the voters to be reminded of Labour’s failures, of the part Labour played in one of the worst child abuse scandals every uncovered in this country.

Labour were told what was going on in Rotherham, they were warned and they did nothing. That is what is “despicable” in all of this. Labour wants you to forget. But UKIP won’t forget. The families of Rotherham won’t forget. The voters of South Yorkshire won’t forget.