Britain’s Conservative Party suspended one of its lawmakers on Saturday after he said the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, was under the control of Islamists. The decision to sack Lee Anderson comes as pressure had been growing on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Tories to act following the lawmaker’s contentious remarks Friday, which have been widely condemned as racist and Islamophobic.
It comes as incidents of Islamophobia and anti-Semitism have spiked across the UK amid increased polarisation since the outbreak of the war in Gaza last October. Khan, the first Muslim to be mayor of London and a member of the opposition Labour Party, is a frequent target of Conservative criticism for his handling of policing in Britain’s capital, including regular pro-Palestinian marches.
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On Wednesday hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters gathered outside parliament, during a chaotic vote over whether to call for a ceasefire in Gaza and the exact language to use. Lindsay Hoyle, the speaker of the lower house of parliament, said he broke with the usual parliamentary procedure for the vote because of previous threats of violence some lawmakers had received due to their views on the conflict.
Speaking on Friday to the television channel GB News, Anderson said: “I don’t actually believe these Islamists have got control of our country. But what I do believe is they’ve got control of Khan and they’ve got control of London. He’s actually given our capital city to his mates.” Khan, who regularly speaks of the importance of fighting antisemitism, misogyny and homophobia, told reporters that he regarded Anderson’s comments as racist and Islamophobic and that they would “pour fuel on the fire of anti-Muslim hatred”.
The Conservative Party said it had decided he could no longer represent them in parliament. “Following his refusal to apologise for comments made yesterday, the Chief Whip has suspended the Conservative whip from Lee Anderson MP,” a spokesperson for Simon Hart, the government minister in charge of party discipline, said. Anderson, a former Conservative Party vice chairman, said he understood the decision to suspend him.
“I will continue to support the government’s efforts to call out extremism in all its forms – be that antisemitism or Islamophobia,” he wrote on his Facebook page. A survey conducted from Feb. 16-18 by Savanta showed that 29 percent of Britons believed the Conservatives had a problem with Islamophobia, the most of any major political party.
(With agency inputs)
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