Lee Anderson, the new deputy Tory chair, said “nobody has ever committed a crime after being executed” as he backed the return of the death penalty for criminals who are “easily identifiable”.
The Ashfield MP, claims he regularly gets complimented for saying what his constituents think in the Commons, also demanded the Royal Navy dock a frigate in the English Channel to prevent asylum seekers reaching the UK on small boats.
Mr Anderson – a former Labour councillor before converting to the Tories – has been no stranger to controversy since being elected to Westminster in 2019, having criticised food bank users and the England men’s football team for taking the knee in protest at racism.
Asked whether he supports the return of the death penalty in an interview with The Spectator a few days before his appointment Mr Anderson replied: “Yes.
“Nobody has ever committed a crime after being executed.
“You know that, don’t you? 100 per cent success rate.”
The death penalty for murder in the UK was outlawed permanently in 1969, with it totally abolished for all crimes in 1998.
The last people executed in Britain were Peter Allen and Gwynne Evans on August 13 1964.
The UK has signed up to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which prohibits the restoration of the death penalty.
But Mr Anderson argued that heinous crimes — such as the murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby in 2013 by Islamist extremists Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale — where the perpetrators are clearly identifiable should be punished by execution.
Adebolajo was given a whole-life term and Adebowale was jailed for a minimum of 45 years for running over and stabbing the British Army soldier in south-east London in broad daylight.
Mr Anderson told the magazine: “Now I’d be very careful on that one (the return of the death penalty) because you’ll get the certain groups saying: ‘You can never prove it’.
“Well, you can prove it if they have videoed it and are on camera – like the Lee Rigby killers.
“I mean: they should have gone, same week. I don’t want to pay for these people.”
On the issue of preventing small boats from crossing the Channel — one of the Prime Minister’s top five priorities — Mr Anderson said migrants arriving unlawfully in Britain should be returned the “same day” to where they came from.
He said that during a visit to Calais last month he met migrants referring to Britain as “El Dorado”.
“They are seeing a country where the streets are paved with gold – where, once you land, they are not in that manky little f****** scruffy tent,” Mr Anderson said.
“They are going to be in a four-star hotel. And they know that Serco is buying up houses everywhere, to put them in for the next five years. Why wouldn’t you come?”
Four people died after a small boat carrying 50 migrants capsized in the icy English Channel in December.
Asked for his solution, he replied: “I’d send them straight back the same day.
“I’d put them on a Royal Navy frigate or whatever and sail it to Calais, have a stand-off. And they’d just stop coming.”
The former miner said, despite facing criticism in some quarters for his opinions, he found voters often agreed with him.
“If I say something that is supposedly outrageous in that place [the Commons], I get back to Ashfield on a Thursday, people will come out the shops and say, ‘You say what I’m thinking’,” he added.
“Maybe some of my colleagues think I’m a little bit too divisive.
“But I’m of the mind that half the population will hate you, whatever colour you wear.”
Lee Anderson’s appointment raised eyebrows from all sides of the house with one Tory telling Sky that Anderson is “everything that is wrong with the Conservative brand presently”.
The MP added: “He seems to rejoice in deliberately provoking and making aggressive simplistic statements that fail to recognise the complexities of the issues facing the country.
“If this is the new Tory party, many will be forgiven for deserting it.”
This is brilliant.
— Damon Evans (@damocrat) November 25, 2019
Conservative candidate, Lee Anderson - who said people should be housed in tents & forced to pick vegetables - ‘secretly’ arranged to speak with a local supporter, but left his mic on while he did it.
Oh, and the supporter wasn’t very helpful to his campaign. pic.twitter.com/DCUuWfmrez
Anderson was recently asked by BBC Radio Nottingham about a video of him setting up a friendly doorstep encounter during the 2019 election campaign.
While doorknocking with journalist Michael Crick a microphone picks up Mr Anderson instructing a supposed floating voter to deny he is a friend when they knock on his door.
In response, he ranted at the BBC presenter asking her 10 times if she had ever told a lie. The awkward exchange was left in the show when he expressed concerns about the editing.
The new Tory chairman Greg Hands said he would not getting into a “running commentary” about some of the previous comments.
Hands praised his party colleague as a “great asset” and as someone with “great integrity”.
