Lee Anderson has refused to apologise for saying asylum seekers who don’t want to be housed on barges should “f*** off back to France”.
But the Conservative deputy chairman also said there was “no doubt” the government had failed to tackle illegal immigration.
The Tory MP for Ashfield in Nottinghamshire made the remark about asylum seekers after it emerged about 20 of them were granted a last-minute reprieve from boarding the Bibby Stockholm accommodation vessel on Monday.
The charity Care4Calais said their transfers from hotels were “cancelled” after lawyers challenged the decision to move them on to the barge moored off the Dorset coast.
Labour labels barge a ‘floating failure’ – politics latest
Asked by Nigel Farage on his GB News show on Tuesday evening whether he will be apologising for the words he used, Mr Anderson said: “No.”
When questioned by the former Brexit campaigner about whether his use of the “f-word” was in bad taste, Mr Anderson replied: “No… it’s borne out of frustration.
“It’s borne out of me being absolutely furious. It’s not just me that’s being furious, it’s my constituents and millions of people up and down the country.”
A general view of the Bibby Stockholm accommodation barge which is set to house up to 500 asylum seekers
And when asked if the Conservative government had failed to tackle illegal immigration effectively, Mr Anderson said: “We have failed on this, there’s no doubt about it.
“We said we’re going to fix it, it is a failure. But we have got policies in place – I know it’s a bit hard for the British public at the moment to understand what we’re trying to do with the Rwanda flights, and the change in legislation, the Illegal Migration Bill.
“It seems very slow and cumbersome – we’re up against it, we’ve got the lefty lawyers, the human rights campaigners, we’ve got the charities, everything’s against us.
“I’m not making excuses, but it’s slowing us down. If we had the whole of parliament behind us I’m sure this would have got through by now.”