Lee Anderson: New Tory deputy chairman says he would support return of death penalty
Rishi Sunak’s controversial new deputy party chairman said he would support the return of the death penalty because “nobody has ever committed a crime after being executed”.
Outspoken Ashfield MP Lee Anderson was handed the senior government position during the prime minister’s reshuffle on Tuesday.
The move raised eyebrows given his history of controversial comments, including questioning if food bank users have genuine need and criticising England football players for taking the knee in protest at racism.
In an interview with The Spectator magazine a few days before his surprise appointment, Mr Anderson said he would back the return of capital punishment.
Asked whether he would support the return of the death penalty, Mr Anderson told the weekly magazine: “Yes.”
He added: “Nobody has ever committed a crime after being executed. You know that, don’t you? 100% success rate.”
The death penalty for murder in the UK was outlawed permanently in 1969 and then totally abolished for all crimes in 1998.
The last people executed in Britain were Peter Allen and Gwynne Evans on 13 August 1964.
The UK has signed up to the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits the restoration of the death penalty.
But Mr Anderson argued that heinous crimes where the perpetrators are clearly identifiable should be punished by execution.
He pointed to the murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby in 2013 by Islamist extremists Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale.
The former was given a whole life term, meaning he will die in prison, and the latter was jailed for a minimum of 45 years for running over and stabbing the British Army soldier in southeast London in broad daylight.
Mr Anderson told the magazine: “Now I’d be very careful on that one [the return of the death penalty] because you’ll get the certain groups saying ‘You can never prove it’.
“Well, you can prove it if they have videoed it and are on camera – like the Lee Rigby killers.
“I mean: they should have gone, same week. I don’t want to pay for these people.”
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Mr Anderson, who has compared the government to “the band on the Titanic” for its handling of small boat crossings, also said migrants arriving unlawfully in Britain should be returned the “same day” to where they came from.
The former miner said he visited Calais last month and met migrants referring to Britain as “El Dorado”.
“They are seeing a country where the streets are paved with gold – where, once you land, they are not in that manky little f****** scruffy tent,” he said.
Asked for his solution, he replied: “I’d send them straight back the same day.
“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 converting to the Tories, Mr Anderson said that despite facing criticism in some quarters for his opinions, he found voters often agreed with him.
“If I say something that is supposedly outrageous in that place [the Commons], I get back to Ashfield on a Thursday, people will come out the shops and say ‘You say what I’m thinking’,” he added.
“Maybe some of my colleagues think I’m a little bit too divisive.
“But I’m of the mind that half the population will hate you, whatever colour you wear.”
Mr Anderson is popular among grassroot party members and was voted favourite backbench MP of 2022 in a survey by Conservative Home.
He will work under Greg Hands, who is replacing Nadhim Zahawi as chairman after he was sacked over his handling of his tax affairs.
One Tory MP had choice words over the appointment, telling Sky’s deputy political editor Sam Coates that Mr Anderson is “everything that is wrong with the Conservative brand presently”.
The MP added: “He seems to rejoice in deliberately provoking and making aggressive simplistic statements that fail to recognise the complexities of the issues facing the country.
“If this is the new Tory party, many will be forgiven for deserting it.”
Labour also attacked the appointment, with Zarah Sultana saying the Conservatives were “scraping the barrel” to fill government appointments.
But Nigel Adams, the Tory MP for Selby and Ainsty, hailed the decision as a “clever appointment” by the prime minister adding: “He understands why people voted Conservative in 2019 and what makes them tick.”
The fast-moving developments on Trump’s Ukraine peace deal are dominating the G20 summit in South Africa, as European leaders scramble to put together a counter-proposal to the US-Russia 28-point plan and reinsert Ukraine into these discussions.
European countries are now working up proposals to put to President Trump ahead of his deadline of Thursday to agree a deal.
Ukraine is in a tight spot. It cannot reject Washington outright – it relies on US military support to continue this war – but neither can it accept the terms of a deal that is acutely favourable to Russia, requiring Ukraine to give up territory not even occupied by Moscow and reducing its army.
Overnight, the UK government has reiterated its position that any deal must deliver a “just and lasting peace”.
Ukraine war latest: Kyiv to discuss ending war in talks in Switzerland
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Keir Starmer calls for growth plan at G20
The prime minister, who spoke with E3 allies President Macron of France, Chancellor Merz of Germany and President Zelenskyy of Ukraine on the phone on Friday, is having more conversations today with key partners as they work out how to handle Trump and improve this deal for Ukraine.
One diplomatic source told me allies are being very careful not to criticise Trump or his approach for fear of exacerbating an already delicate situation.
Instead, the prime minister is directing his attacks at Russia.
Read more:
Trump’s 28-point Ukraine peace plan in full
Analysis: We could all pay if Europe doesn’t guarantee Ukraine’s security
Prime Minister Keir Starmer attends a plenary session on the first day of the G20 Leaders’ Summit. Pic: Reuters
“There is only one country around the G20 table that is not calling for a ceasefire in Ukraine and one country that is deploying a barrage of drones and missiles to destroy livelihoods and murder innocent civilians,” he said on Friday evening.
“Time and again, Russia pretends to be serious about peace, but its actions never live up to its words.”
Pic: AP
On the Trump plan, the prime minister said allies are meetin on Saturday “to discuss the current proposal on the table, and in support of Trump’s push for peace, look at how we can strengthen this plan for the next phase of negotiations”.
Strengthening the plan really means that they want to rebalance it towards Ukraine’s position and make it tougher on Russia.
“Ukraine has been ready to negotiate for months, while Russia has stalled and continued its murderous rampage. That is why we must all work together with both the US and Ukraine, to secure a just and lasting peace once and for all,” said the prime minister.
“We will continue to coordinate closely with Washington and Kyiv to achieve that. However, we cannot simply wait for peace.
“We must strain every sinew to secure it. We must cut off Putin’s finance flows by ending our reliance on Russian gas. It won’t be easy, but it’s the right thing to do.”
Pic: AP
Europeans hadn’t even seen this deal earlier in the week, in a sign that the US is cutting other allies out of negotiations – for now at least.
Starmer and other European leaders want to get to a position where Ukraine and Europe are at least at the table.
There is some discussion about whether European leaders such as Macron and Meloni might travel to Washington to speak to Trump early next week in order to persuade him of the European and Ukrainian perspective, as leaders did last August following the US-Russian summit in Alaska.
But Sky News understands there are no discussions about the PM travelling to Washington next week ahead of the budget.
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