LONDON — Britain’s ruling Conservatives have “failed” to get undocumented migration to the U.K. under control, the party’s own deputy chair Lee Anderson has told Nigel Farage.
Discussing U.K. migration policy with the former Brexit Party leader on his GB News show on Tuesday, Anderson said: “This is out of control, we are in power at the moment, I am the deputy chair of the Conservative party, we are in government and we have failed on this. There is no doubt about it.”
“We have said we are going to fix it, it is a failure,” he added.
Anderson, who was given an official party post by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in February, and has his own show on the self-styled anti-woke GB News, is known for his outspoken views.
Earlier this week he came under fire for saying that if asylum seekers don’t wish to be housed on a barge — referring to the Bibby Stockholm boat — then they should “fuck off back to France.”
Asked by Farage if he wanted to apologize for his profanity-laden comments, Anderson said they were “born out of frustration, born out of me being absolutely furious.”
Government colleagues backed Anderson over his barge comments. Justice Secretary Alex Chalk described Anderson’s controversial statement as “salty” but “not unreasonable,” in an interview on LBC.
Anderson said in his Farage interview that he believes “it is a bit hard for the British public at the moment to actually understand what we are trying to do with the Rwanda flights and the change in legislation, the Illegal Migration Bill, and it seems very slow.” He was referencing the U.K.’s Rwanda scheme, which would see ministers send some asylum seekers to the east African country. The U.K.’s Court of Appeal ruled against the plan in June.
