Lee Anderson has become notorious for saying what many right wing Conservatives think but don’t dare say out loud.

“30p Lee” is a total embarrassment to politics and public life.

Today, he suggested that asylum seekers should be sent to Orkney rather than Rwanda.

This attracted the attention of Orkney’s MP, our own Alistair Carmichael, who said:

This is not a serious proposition. I would be astonished if Lee Anderson could even find Orkney – or in his words “the Orkneys” – on a map. His remarks show inhumanity towards desperate and vulnerable people – and disdain towards island communities to boot.

Anderson has form for brainstorming Tory policy live on air. It is a novel sort of brainstorming as it does not actually involve the engagement of a brain but instead looks more like an exercise in corralling as many prejudices as possible into one space and calling it a policy.

If Rishi Sunak cannot bring his deputy chair into line then the only conclusion is that he approves of these attitudes. Yet another attempt by a Tory MP to kick up dust and distract attention from the failure of their government to manage our asylum and immigration system.

Of course, if only there was an actual solution to the asylum system. Oh wait….

Every day the backlog of unprocessed asylum applications gets longer. The Conservatives – whether Anderson, Cleverly or Sunak – should focus on fixing that, instead of looking around for new rows to pick.

And, of course, there would be no need for boats to make the hazardous crossing if there were safe and legal routes for them to claim asylum.

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