30p Lee Does Another Racism

And so it came to pass that all the attempts by the Tories to drive the issue of bigotry round the houses until the next issue provided a little momentary interest were for nothing. Lee Anderson, already minus the party whip, has declined to say sorry for doing a racism with his attack on London Mayor Sadiq Khan, but instead has done another racism. And a conspiracy theory.

As the BBC has reported, Anderson told Gammon Broadcasting™ News (“Bacon’s News Channel”) that “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… He's actually given our capital city away to his mates”. The Scary Muslims™ done it!

After he lost the whip, 30p Lee mused “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. 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 anti-Semitism or Islamophobia”. And how would he express this support?

Sadly for the Tories, he would express it by doing another racism, along with a screaming dog-whistle of a racist conspiracy theory. “If you are wrong, apologising is not a sign of weakness but a sign of strength … But, when you think you are right, you should never apologise because to do so would be a sign of weakness”. So what made him right, and Mayor Khan wrong?

His remarks were “born out of sheer frustration at what is happening to our beautiful capital city … Politics is divisive and I am just incredibly frustrated about the abject failures of the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan … Hundreds of people had been arrested for racist abuse on these marches [showing solidarity with Palestinians] and we barely hear a peep from the mayor”.

Do go on. “If these marches were about something less fashionable, Sadiq Khan would have been the first to call for them to be cancelled. It’s double standards for political benefit”. You may not have heard the dog whistle, but the racists did. That’s the “two-tier policing” racist conspiracy theory.

Added to that, Anderson is lying about “hundreds of people … arrested for racist abuse”. The BBC has revealed that “Religious/racial abuse has been listed as the reason for arrest in a total of 30 cases … 11 in October … 11 in November … Eight in December”. Figures for January are not yet available. Then there is the suggestion that Khan has operational control of the Met.

Let’s take this nice and slowly, for 30p Lee and all the others who think that the Mayor of London could call off the Palestine solidarity marches. Sadiq Khan does not, repeat does not, REPEAT DOES NOT have operational control over the Metropolitan Police. And the only person who can direct the Met to outlaw those marches is the Home Secretary, James Cleverly.

Who is not the Mayor of London, not in the Labour Party, and not intervening to have any of those marches called off. Sadly, nailing Islamophobia is less straightforward as the cross-party group which devised a definition of that racism had its findings kicked into the long grass by the Tories - possibly because it would expose the bigotry of our free and fearless press.

It would certainly cause editors to think twice before giving a platform to the likes of the deeply unpleasant Kelvin McFilth, who is still courted by the papers, and indeed GB News. And Trevor Kavanagh asking about what we are going to do about “The Muslim Question”, only to pretend he didn’t know that wording was loaded. Nor did his editors. Yeah, right.

It might also stop Tories indulging in Muslim bashing, like Paul Scully, who today “talks about ‘changing neighbourhoods’ and Muslim ‘no go areas’ in Tower Hamlets and Birmingham”. Miqdaad Versi noted “Not realising ‘no go zones’ are a typical false & Islamophobic trope from the white supremacist & far right fringes, shows the depth of the problem”. Remember Andy Ngo.

Lee Anderson is a racist bigot. As are too many Tories and pundits.

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