Sunak should apologise to Khan, says ex-adviser

A former government adviser on faith has urged Rishi Sunak to apologise to London Mayor Sadiq Khan after ex-Tory deputy chairman Lee Anderson said he was under the control of Islamists.

Colin Bloom told the BBC the comments about Mr Khan were "disgusting".

Mr Anderson was suspended from the Conservative Party in Parliament after refusing to apologise.

The government said it was "clear there must be zero tolerance for any form of extremism, racism or hatred".

A spokesperson said earlier this month ministers had announced they would introduce "new powers to crack down on intimidatory and aggressive behaviour at protests, and...we launched a new Defending Democracy Protocol, backed by £31m of additional funding, to ensure that intimidatory protest does not hijack democratic process".

Funding was also being increased to help communities tackle both antisemitism and anti-Muslim hatred. the spokesperson added.

In an interview with BBC Newsnight, he called on the prime minister to personally say sorry to the London mayor, saying it was clearly wrong and "offensive" for a Tory MP to equate being a Muslim with being an Islamist.

Mr Bloom also accused the prime minister of "not showing the leadership the country needs" by "calling out" Islamist extremism.

The "vast majority" of British Muslims were "kind, decent, generous, peaceful people" and much more likely to be victims of Islamist extremism, so that by failing to make clear the difference, ministers were harming them, he argued.

Mr Bloom, a former executive director of the Conservative Christian Fellowship and director of Christians in Politics, acknowledged he felt disgruntled by what he saw as a lack of understanding of faith in politics, but denied making his criticisms because his contract as a government adviser had come to an end.

In his original comments on GB News last Friday, Mr Anderson claimed "Islamists" had "got control" of Mr Khan and said the mayor had "given away our capital" to such extremists.

The former deputy Conservative Party chairman has repeatedly refused to apologise - though he has admitted the comments were "a little bit clumsy" - and has said the prime minister made a "mistake" in stripping him of the Tory whip.

Mr Anderson, who was formerly a Labour councillor before being suspended and then defecting to the Conservatives in 2018, said he had received "lots of support privately in WhatsApp groups and messages" from Tory MPs since that decision.

The Ashfield MP, who now sits in the Commons as an independent, has not ruled out standing for Reform UK, formerly the Brexit Party, at the general election. He has denied suggestions his remarks were Islamophobic or racist.

GB News - which pays him £100,000 a year on top of his £86,584 salary as an MP to present a show on its network - reported that he met Reform UK leader Richard Tice only 24 hours after losing the Conservative whip.

Mr Sunak and other senior Conservatives have described Mr Anderson's words as "wrong", but have declined to say whether they were Islamophobic.