Minister cut off during interview after refusing to say why Lee Anderson’s Sadiq Khan slur was wrong – UK politics live

Good morning. Yesterday Rishi Sunak spent all day in interviews describing Lee Anderson’s claim about the Labour mayor of London (“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 [Sadiq] Khan, and they’ve got control of London”) as wrong, while dodging questions about whether the comment was Islamophobic. The obvious follow-up was why was it wrong. Sunak managed to get through interviews yesterday without being up-ended by this challenge, but this morning on LBC Michael Tomlinson, the illegal immigration minister, was cut off after repeatedly refusing to answer this question.

Tomlinson was being interviewed by Nick Ferrari who started by asking why Anderson had to have the whip suspended. Because what he said was wrong, Tomlinson replied. Ferrari repeatedly asked why Anderson’s comment was wrong, and Tomlinson just kept replying: “What he said was wrong.”

Ferrari then tried a different tack, and asked if the comment was Islamphobic. But he did not have any more joy with that either, because Tomlinson just replied: “What he said was wrong.”

After two more times, and getting the same answer again, an exasperated Ferrari, who said he was “normally a very polite man”, told listeners:

I have to curtail the interview. I’m grateful for your time but enough already. Michael Tomlinson is a minister of state for illegal migration unable to answer a question.

It was a slice of radio that perfectly captured how moronic government ministers sound when they slavishly parrot the line to take from No 10, when they lack the wit or nous to dodge a question without making it too obvious. Listeners must have been cheering when Ferrari pushed the ejector seat button, and it would be nice if other presenters did this a bit more often too.

But the episode also illustrates why the Lee Anderson row is so difficult for Sunak and the Conservative party. No 10 does not want ministers describing what Anderson said as racist or Islamophobic (even though Anderson himself has subtly distanced himself from the core part of his allegation against Khan last week – see below) because it wants to draw a line under this affair. And that is for three reasons: 1) Anderson has significant support amongst Tories (again, see below); 2) conceding Anderson’s comment was racist would open Suella Braverman up to the same charge; and 3) this would also accelerate a wider debate about Islamophobia in the Conservative party, which Sunak would rather avoid.

In other developments on this story:

• Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, has suggested that the No 10 response to Anderson’s comments amounts to “hysteria”. She posted this on X last night.

We need to urgently focus now on the big problem: how to tackle Islamist extremism in the UK.

The hysteria in response to those calling out the crisis is one of the reasons why we’re not making progress.

Language does matter but it’s time for resolute government action:

Braverman, of course, wrote an article for the Telegraph last week saying that Keir Starmer was “in hock to the Islamists” and that “the truth is that the Islamists, the extremists and the anti-Semites are in charge now.”

• Grassroots Conservative supporters have called Rishi Sunak a “snake” over Lee Anderson’s suspension, the Guardian has reported. Here is our story by Eleni Courea, Ben Quinn and Pippa Crerar.

The Daily Express has splashed on a version of the same tale.

• Sajjad Karim, a former Conservative MEP who chaired the European parliament’s working group on Islamophobia, has told the Guardian that Boris Johnson’s handling of an inquiry into Islamophobia in the Tory party “ended up sending a signal to the party membership that was basically, Muslims are fair game”. Karim was speaking to Archie Bland, who has written this up in his First Edition newsletter.

• Anderson has claimed that he is receiving “phenomenal support” over the comments about Sadiq Khan that led to him being suspended from the Conservative party. In an interview with GB News, where he works as a presenter, he said:

I know I’m not everybody’s cup of tea and I do speak in a different language to a lot of people in Parliament. When I went into pubs in Ashfield at the weekend, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, which I did, I got a round of applause and I went in. These are normal working class people.

Some people over in that place (Westminster) might not like that sort of response, but this is what normal people are thinking in places like Ashfield.

My inbox has exploded with support. I cannot keep up with my WhatsApp messages, my text messages, my Facebook messages, Instagram, whatever social media platform I’m on. The amount of support coming through is absolutely phenomenal.

• Anderson said in the interview that he would not apologise to Khan, “not while I’ve got a breath in my body because the comments I made weren’t racist at all”.

• But, in his interview, Anderson did not restate his claim that Khan was under the control of Islamists. Instead he focused on a different allegation – that Khan had lost control of policing in London. He said:

I stick by my words in that we have lost control or losing control of the city. When people again and again can come out and demonstrate and shout murderous chants and put these graphics onto Big Ben, ‘from the river to the sea’ and nothing happens.

We’ve got yobos running around with masks on, which is now illegal, and the police stand idly by and do nothing. Who has got control of Parliament Square? Is it the extremists or is it Mayor Khan and the Metropolitan police?

• Anderson said that he had been on “a political journey”, declared that he wanted to stand again at the next election, and did not rule out joining Reform UK.

Here is the agenda for the day.

10am: The Commons business committee starts a marathon evidence session about the Post Office Horizon scandal. Among the key witnesses are Alan Bates, who led the campaign for justice for former post office operators at 11am, Nick Read, the Post Office chief executive, at 12pm, and Henry Staunton, the former Post Office chair, at 1pm.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

2.15pm: David Neal, who was sacked last week as the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration, gives evidence to the Commons home affairs committee.

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