Lee Anderson stripped of Tory whip over Sadiq Khan comments

LONDON: Lee Anderson has been stripped of the Conservative whip after claiming Sadiq Khan had “given our capital away” to Islamists.

His comments to GB News on Friday night caused widespread outrage from his Tory colleagues and Labour MPs, with Khan, the London mayor, calling them “Islamophobic, anti-Muslim and racist”.

Former Conservative cabinet ministers joined opposition MPs and the Muslim Council of Britain in lambasting the remarks, with calls for Rishi Sunak to kick him out of the party.

On Saturday afternoon, the chief whip, Simon Hart, made the decision to remove the whip from Anderson, who will now sit as an independent.

A spokesperson for Hart said: “Following his refusal to apologise for comments made yesterday, the chief whip has suspended the Conservative whip from Lee Anderson MP.”

Anderson, the MP for Ashfield, had been deputy chair of the Conservative party until last month, when he resigned after rebelling against Sunak’s Rwanda bill.