LEE Anderson has refused to apologise for telling asylum seekers to “f*** off back to France” and instead doubled down on his comments regarding immigration.
The Tory deputy chairman attracted fierce criticism on Tuesday, but continued to insist that there was “no doubt” the UK Government had failed to tackle immigration.
The Tory MP for Ashfield in Nottinghamshire made the remark about migrants when it was revealed that 20 of them were given a last-minute reprieve from boarding the Bibby Stockholm barge in Dorset on Monday.
Charity Care4Calais said the asylum seeker's transfers from hotels were “cancelled” after a legal challenge was made to the decision to move them onto the barge.
Anderson said: “If they don’t like barges then they should f*** off back to France.”
Previously, we told how the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) warned that the Bibby Stockholm is a floating “death trap”, leading a senior Tory minister to dismiss the union’s safety fears and accused them of politicking.
And now, Anderson has refused to row back from the comments that prompted outrage across the political spectrum.
Asked by Nigel Farage on his GB News show whether he would be apologising for the wording he used, Anderson said: “No.”
Further probed on whether using a swear word was in bad taste, Anderson said: "No... it's borne out of frustration.
"It's borne out of me being absolutely furious. It's not just me that's being furious, it's my constituents and millions of people up and down the country."
Anderson went on to insist that the UK Tory Government had failed to tackle illegal immigration effectively.
"We have failed on this, there's no doubt about it,” he told the right-wing news outlet.
"We said we're going to fix it, it is a failure. But we have got policies in place - I know it's a bit hard for the British public at the moment to understand what we're trying to do with the Rwanda flights, and the change in legislation, the Illegal Migration Bill.
"It seems very slow and cumbersome - we're up against it, we've got the lefty lawyers, the human rights campaigners, we've got the charities, everything's against us.
"I'm not making excuses, but it's slowing us down. If we had the whole of parliament behind us I'm sure this would have got through by now."
The UK Government has claimed that the use of the Bibby Stockholm barge will reduce the cost of hotel bills.
However, the barge has 222 bedrooms, but will ultimately hold around 500 men, prompting safety concerns.
Anderson said that “grafters” in the oil industry who are “doing a job for this great country of ours" live on barges and don’t complain.
"It makes me sick to the pit of my stomach when these lefty lawyers, the charities, the human rights campaigners, say it's not good enough,” he said.
"If it's not good enough, [the asylum seekers] should go back to France."
We told how Labour leader Keir Starmer was called out for failing to condemn Anderson’s comments amid cross-party fury on Tuesday.
