 'F**k off back to France'. That statement from Tory MP Lee Anderson, directed at asylum seekers being housed on a barge in Dorset, left me aghast, angry and disappointed but not at all surprised. Not only because Anderson is an elected official who has made his name from throwing around divisive and inflammatory comments for notoriety, but because as a Black man, I'm depressingly used to hearing comments like this. Telling someone to 'go home' is a racist trope I know all too well. I was born and raised in England, and I've still been told too many times to 'go home if you don't like it here', or 'why don't you f**k off back to Africa'. I was reminded of these grim incidents when I heard the latest outburst from Anderson, who has previously claimed those struggling with the cost-of-living can make meals for 30p a day, challenged a Brexit critic to a scrap, and even said of some struggling nurses using food banks that 'they've got something wrong with their own finances.' I've long since made my disdain for Anderson clear thanks to ham-fisted statements like this, but the fact that a member of Parliament can speak this way is profoundly disheartening – it has, rightfully in my view, been compared to the language of far-right groups such as the BNP and National Front. I'm not sure what type of voters Anderson thinks he's trying to reach through this dog-whistle messaging, but it is a sign of how desperate things are for the Conservatives that far from criticising the Ashfield MP, the party endorsed his views. Regardless of your views on immigration, Anderson's rhetoric has no place in the modern Tory Party, politics, or indeed British society at all I may not have fainted with shock hearing the latest outburst from Anderson, but I was genuinely taken aback when Justice Secretary Alex Chalk defended the sickening comments in multiple interviews, insisting he had){kind=link}
NEWS… BUT NOT AS YOU KNOW IT
‘F**k off back to France’.
That statement from Tory MP Lee Anderson, directed at asylum seekers being housed on a barge in Dorset, left me aghast, angry and disappointed but not at all surprised.
Not only because Anderson is an elected official who has made his name from throwing around divisive and inflammatory comments for notoriety, but because as a Black man, I’m depressingly used to hearing comments like this.
Telling someone to ‘go home’ is a racist trope I know all too well. I was born and raised in England, and I’ve still been told too many times to ‘go home if you don’t like it here’, or ‘why don’t you f**k off back to Africa’.