Police assess Tory MP Lee Anderson’s feedback after hate speech claims

Police are “assessing” a report of hate speech made in opposition to MP Lee Anderson after he accused the mayor of London of being managed by Islamists.

Scotland Yard mentioned a report was obtained a day after the previous Tory deputy chairman made the remarks that unleashed an Islamophobia row. The Ashfield MP was stripped of the Conservative whip over the weekend after he claimed that “Islamists” had “got control” of Sadiq Khan and that the primary Muslim London mayor had “given away our capital” to such extremists.

The Met doesn’t present data on named people who haven’t been charged with an offence however after an article in The Sun newspaper, the drive mentioned on Wednesday: “A report was made to police on Saturday, 24 February. Officers are assessing this report.”

The evaluation might lead to a full investigation or a dismissal due to a scarcity of enough proof. Mr Anderson’s feedback sparked outrage throughout the political spectrum.

But the MP, who’s now sitting within the House of Commons as an unbiased, has continued to refuse to apologise and mentioned Rishi Sunak made a “mistake” in suspending him. He has not dominated out standing for Reform UK, previously referred to as the Brexit Party, on the subsequent election.

GB News, the right-wing broadcaster that pays Mr Anderson a £100,000 wage, on prime of his £86,584 MP pay, to current a present on its community, reported that he met Reform chief Richard Tice on Sunday, solely 24 hours after being disadvantaged of his Tory affiliation within the Commons.

Appearing on GB News on Monday night, Mr Anderson mentioned he is not going to apologise till the day he dies. “I’m not sorry because I stand by my words. It’s not racist to call out Islamists,” he mentioned.

The politician argued the Conservatives “could have given me a little bit more backing” as he was keen to point out “a little bit of contrition”. But he added: “I didn’t directly apologise to Mayor Khan, which I’m not going to, not while I’ve got a breath in my body because the comments I made weren’t racist at all.”

Senior Conservatives have described Mr Anderson’s assault on Mr Khan as “wrong” however have to date stopped in need of describing them as “Islamophobic”. The Labour London mayor has urged the Prime Minister to name the remarks racist and Islamophobic. Critics mentioned Mr Sunak’s reluctance to explain the feedback as Islamophobic was “weak”.