It’s time to kick out far right Tory party racists and conspiracists - Angus Robertson

Former ​Tory party deputy chair Lee Anderson’s comments were Islamophobic. No question about it. Anderson, ​the MP for Ashfield – and already someone with a record of misguided remarks – claims that “Islamists” have “got control” of London Mayor Sadiq Khan.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, with Lee Anderson MP for Ashfield during a visit to Woodland View Primary School in Sutton-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire. Mr Anderson has had the Conservative whip suspended after making a widely criticised claim that London Mayor Sadiq Khan was controlled by "Islamists"

Buoyed in his right-wing bubble surroundings on GB News, Anderson’s true colours shone through as he blew the worst kind of dog whistle.

He has, to date, refused to apologise. It is quite unbelievable how a sitting MP, who was the Conservative party’s deputy chair until last month, is unable to see how ugly and prejudiced his words are.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who tried to hide from commenting for two days, was called out by former Tory chair Baroness Saida Warsi who has, to her credit, been appealing to the Conservative party to rid itself of its Islamophobia problem for years.

“What is it about the Prime Minister that he can’t even call out anti-Muslim racism and anti-Muslim bigotry? Why can’t he just use those words?” She said, adding The Prime Minister needed to “find the language” to “call Islamophobia Islamophobia”.

This was something the Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden could not manage to do when asked about the blatantly Islamophobic statements from Anderson.

Eventually, Sunak said Anderson’s comments were wrong but that, in his view, the Tories did not have a problem with Islamophobia. Those two mutually contradictory statements uttered in one breath reveal either a cluelessness about the unsavoury anti-Muslim history of his party called out time and time again by Baroness Warsi or just a willingness to ignore it.

Not long before this saga, former Home Secretary Suella Braverman claimed that Islamists were now “in charge” in the UK. She said a ‘misguided dogma of multiculturalism’ has proved ‘toxic’ for Europe. It is total rubbish. Deeply rooted prejudice exists in all societies, but the only way to better it is through integration and understanding of other cultures.

Islamophobia is not the only misguided dogma rife in the Tory party. Comments about other minorities and the perpetuation of conspiracy theories seem to be par for the course now.

Take, for example, former Prime Minister Liz Truss who, having released her new book, appeared on ‘Real America’s Voice’, a far-right TV channel. The interviewer was former chief strategist to Donald Trump, Steve Bannon.

Truss, whose 45-day tenure in office saw the decimation of the British economy, argued that her dismal failure had been due to the ‘deep state’, a well-documented conspiracy theory about a non-existent cabal controlling government.

It is really important to acknowledge that these comments are made not by people on the fringes of the fringes, but those who are or have been central decision-makers of the Conservative party and the Government of the United Kingdom, including Prime Ministers – we need not revisit the litany of tropes and lies voiced by Boris Johnson.

We have seen the rise of the populist far-right across the Western world. Some commentators suggest the UK has largely avoided it. The truth is much more insidious.

A creeping far-right has, in the last 14 years of Tory government, simply walked in and been handed the levers of power to the cheers of large swathes of the party membership.

This needs to stop. In every Tory seat in Scotland, the SNP are the closest challengers by far. To rid Scotland of these far-right conspiracist Tories, vote SNP.