STOURBRIDGE MP Margot James says she's been left "enraged" at the Labour Party's treatment of its MP Sarah Champion who has quit the party's front bench after coming under fire for a newspaper article she wrote about predatory sex gangs.

The MP Rotherham announced she was stepping down as Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities after she was criticised for a piece she wrote for The Sun in which she said "Britain has a problem with British Pakistani men raping and exploiting white girls".

Ms Champion, who wrote the article after 17 men were convicted of forcing girls in Newcastle to have sex, has since apologised for her "extremely poor choice of words" but top Tories have slammed the party's treatment of her.

Ms James, Minister for Small Business, said on her Facebook page: "The leadership of the Labour Party's treatment of Sarah Champion has enraged me utterly.

"Her comments in The Sun newspaper, on the numbers of rape gangs, near 99 per cent of which involve perpetrators of Pakistani origin, might have been hard hitting, but that doesn't make them any less true. "Her comments were also born of years of cover up and obfuscation, driven by an over concern for racial sensibilities and an under concern for the wellbeing of large numbers of young girls, many of whom faced very difficult lives in the first place.

"Of course rape and sexual violence know no boundaries when it comes to ethnicity or anything else.

"But there is no getting away from the fact that these particular crimes, committed by large groups of men who have preyed on vulnerable white girls, groomed, drugged, raped and intimidated them over many years, are inextricably linked to Britain's Pakistani community.

"There needs to be a discussion about how we overcome the cultural attitudes towards women that have contributed to these crimes; and to the ways in which they were covered up for so long.

"There has been a disgraceful history of shouting down brave Labour women MPs who have stood up to community pressures in northern cities like Keighley and Rotherham in exposing these crimes.

"There is so much evidence of totally unacceptable attitudes leading to violence, whether it be forced marriage, so called 'honour' killings in respect of Asian girls or the sexual abuse and rape in respect of white girls.

"We need to call out the ethnic and cultural common denominator behind this criminality if we are serious about bringing it to an end. And we must be serious.

"There needs to be zero tolerance, and no hiding place, for this sort of organised violence and misogyny."

Labour MP Naz Shah was among those who criticised Ms Champion - while Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the party would not seek to "demonise any particular group".

Communities Secretary Sajid Javid, Conservative MP for Bromsgrove, however, is also among MPs backing Ms Champion and he said on Twitter: "We need an honest open debate on child sexual exploitation, including racial motivation."