New Tory deputy chairman supports the death penalty
The Prime Minister said “that’s not my view, that’s not the Government’s view” when questioned about reinstating capital punishment.
Mr Anderson, who was appointed by Mr Sunak on Tuesday, also clashed with a radio presenter in a combative interview.
Ashfield MP Mr Anderson was given the post of working as one of new chairman Greg Hands’s lieutenants in the run-up to the next election.
In an interview with The Spectator magazine conducted a few days before his appointment but published after he had been given the role, Mr Anderson said he would support the UK reintroducing the death penalty.
He said: “Nobody has ever committed a crime after being executed. You know that, don’t you? 100 per cent success rate.”
He also suggested using Royal Navy frigates to return to France those arriving in small boats across the English Channel.
Migrants arriving unlawfully in Britain should be returned the “same day” to where they came from, he said.
“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.”
A former Labour councillor before joining the Tories, Mr Anderson 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.
In an interview on Thursday with BBC Radio Nottingham, Mr Anderson became defensive when challenged about being caught asking a friend to pose as an anti-Labour swing voter on the doorstep during the 2019 election campaign.
Mr Anderson refused to reply when asked if he was dishonest. Instead, he asked the reporter 10 times if she had ever lied.
When she said that she had, Mr Anderson said: “So you’re dishonest.”
He has been dubbed “30p Lee” for claiming that meals could be prepared for that sum and suggesting people using food banks could not budget.
Asked if he believes that some working people are having to use food banks, Mr Anderson replied: “No.”