The deputy prime minister has refused to say on Sky News whether Lee Anderson is “racist” as he backed the decision to suspend him from the Conservative Party following his attack on Sadiq Khan.
Mr Anderson claimed “Islamists” had “got control” of the London mayor who had “given our capital city away to his mates”.
Deputy PM Oliver Dowden said the outspoken MP for Ashfield used the “wrong words” to hit out at the mayor, and that “words matter”.
However, Mr Dowden refused to condemn recent remarks by former home secretary Suella Braverman, who said the “Islamist mob” had now “taken over” communities in Britain.
Appearing on Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, Mr Dowden explained that Mr Anderson “was given the opportunity to apologise and he didn’t do so, so therefore we removed the whip”.
Politics latest: Deputy PM refuses to say whether Anderson is racist
Asked by Sir Trevor whether the suspension of Mr Anderson meant the party regarded him as “racist” – or suspected him of being so – Mr Dowden twice refused to address the question and repeated that the Ashfield MP had used “the wrong words”.
Mr Anderson, who resigned as deputy party chairman over Rishi Sunak’s controversial Rwanda bill, was suspended on Saturday afternoon after comments he made on GB News prompted condemnation from across the political divide.
The MP, who was a Labour councillor before defecting to the Tories, told the channel: “I don’t actually believe that the 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 away to his mates.”
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said it was “right” that Mr Anderson lost the whip for what he called an “appalling racist and Islamophobic outburst”, while former Conservative chancellor Sir Sajid Javid branded the remarks “ridiculous”.
Following pressure to act, Conservative chief whip Simon Hart said Mr Anderson had been suspended “following his refusal to apologise for comments made yesterday”.
Despite condemning Mr Anderson for his comments, Mr Dowden did not criticise Ms Braverman for using a recent op-ed article in the Daily Telegraph to claim the UK was “sleepwalking into a ghettoised society where Sharia law, the Islamist mob and antisemites take over communities”.
Asked why Ms Braverman still has the Conservative whip, Mr Dowden said: “I don’t shy away for a moment from facing up to what is happening right now, and I think all of us need to look ourselves in the mirror and say, what have we allowed our society to become?
“I see from my own constituents where Jewish people are fearful of walking the streets, showing symbols of their own religion, where we have hate on marches, and now we have the situation where the actual conduct of parliament is apparently being influenced by threats of violence and intimidation.”
He added: “I don’t believe the language used by Suella Braverman has crossed the line whereby she should apologise for it.”
Mr Sunak’s decision to remove the whip means Mr Anderson will sit as an independent MP in the Commons.
Read more:
From bodyguards to death threats – the real impact of chaos in the Commons
Gaza vote: What happened in the Commons – and can the Speaker Lindsay Hoyle be sacked?
In a post on X after he was suspended on Saturday afternoon, the former deputy party chair said he accepted that the Conservatives had “no option” but to suspend him.
“Following a call with the chief whip, I understand the difficult position that I have put both he and the prime minister in with regard to my comments,” he said.
“I fully accept that they had no option but to suspend the whip in these circumstances.
“However, I will continue to support the government’s efforts to call out extremism in all its forms – be that antisemitism or Islamophobia.”