A real war, the one between Israel and Hamas, has stirred up other minor wars that have clouded the political debate in the United Kingdom for years: the cultural war promoted by the hard wing of the Conservative Party, and the internal war of the Party itself. Labor, never completely stifled.
Crossed accusations of Islamophobia and anti-Semitism reveal the nerves of a country already immersed in an electoral campaign.
At the moment, a conservative deputy has been expelled from his parliamentary group and the party.
On the other hand, the president of the House of Commons, Lindsay Hole – a Labor member until he took office, which in the United Kingdom requires partisan neutrality – is still on the tightrope over a motion that called for a “ceasefire.” humanitarian” in the Middle East.
Lee Anderson, former vice-president of the Conservative Party, has refused to apologize for his harsh words against the Labor mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, a Muslim of Pakistani origins.
He accused him of being a hostage to Islamist fanaticism.
“I don't believe that the Islamists control our country, but I do believe that they control Khan and that they control London (...) He has handed our capital over to his colleagues,” said Anderson on GB News, the new channel that he monopolizes in the United Kingdom. the most populist right-wing speech.
Anderson vented his frustration and that of many other Conservative MPs up in arms against criticism of the UK's colonial or racist history.
He drives them crazy that, every weekend, tens of thousands of people take to the streets of London to demonstrate in favor of Palestine and against the Israeli offensive in Gaza.
Anderson's personal story symbolizes the political turn experienced in the United Kingdom after the bitter years of Brexit.
Minero, a member of the miners' union, was a Labor MP for several years, during which he campaigned for Michael Foot, that brilliant and radical leader of the party who danced between the Zionist and Palestinian causes to end up being accused of being anti-Semitic.
In 2019, the year of Boris Johnson's landslide election victory, Anderson made the jump to the Conservative Party.
As he himself explained, saturated by the leftist drift of the then leader of the Labor Party, Jeremy Corbyn.
Since then, he has joined forces with the most eurosceptic and xenophobic
Tory
MPs .
The leadership of the Conservative Party immediately understood that their deputy's outburst was a ticking time bomb.
Almost four million Muslims live in the United Kingdom, quite active in politics.
In the House of Commons there are 19 of them (15 Labor and four Conservatives).
“Lee's comments were unacceptable.
They were wrong.
That is why he has been expelled,” Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was forced to intervene this Monday, as accusations of Islamophobia against his party grew.
“Words are important, especially in the current environment, when tensions are high.
“We are all obliged to choose them carefully,” Sunak said on the BBC.
The prime minister has insisted on denying that the Conservative Party was Islamophobic.
“Racism or prejudice is completely unacceptable, it is not a British thing and we must eradicate it wherever we see it,” he said.
This Monday, Anderson limited himself to admitting that his words had been “clumsy”, but he reaffirmed his criticism of the London mayor.
“If you make a mistake, apologizing is not a sign of weakness but of strength.
But when you believe you are right, you should never apologize because it will be interpreted as a gesture of weakness,” he said in a statement.
The spark of Suella Braverman
Sunak faces a powerful internal current, which increasingly calls his leadership into question in the final stretch of a general election that will likely be held next autumn.
Many of the conservative deputies of the so-called “red wall” have been alarmed at the reaction of their voters after Anderson's expulsion.
They are the parliamentarians elected in 2019 in traditionally Labor areas, in the north of England and the Midlands.
Populism and anti-immigration sentiment over Brexit caused a shift in the historical direction of voting.
In the last few hours, they have received dozens of protest emails, which they have shared in WhatsApp groups of the deputies to whom the
Daily Telegraph
, the favorite newspaper of the hard wing of the party, has had access.
“Today's news about the expulsion of Lee Anderson has been the final nail in the party's coffin...,” wrote one of its voters to MP Jill Mortimer.
“He is an idiot for saying what he said, and he should have apologized, but he is not a racist and he speaks on behalf of the silent majority of this country, who feel that the political class has abandoned them,” he anonymously told the newspaper.
Daily Telegraph
one of those MPs.
The leader of Reform UK (Reform Party), Richard Tice, has ironically thanked Sunak for the expulsion of Anderson, for giving wings to the electoral expectations of the party founded in his day by the eurosceptic Nigel Farage.
In fact, Farage himself has encouraged Anderson to join his ranks.
Last Thursday there was pandemonium in the House of Commons when its
speaker
(president), Lindsay Hoyle, flouted parliamentary customs and customs.
He allowed a motion from his former party, Labor, calling for a “humanitarian ceasefire” to both Israel and Hamas to be debated and voted on.
That day, however, the order of the session established the debate of a motion from the Scottish National Party (SNP) that more firmly demanded an “immediate ceasefire” only against Israel, and the opposing motion of the Sunak Government, which demanded a lukewarm “humanitarian pause”.
By prioritizing the Labor motion, many Scottish Conservative and nationalist MPs accused Hoyle of saving the skin of opposition leader Keir Starmer.
Dozens of party members—many from former Corbynism—accus him of having a lukewarm and rather pro-Israel stance, and would have backed the SNP motion if they had not been offered an alternative.
The
speaker
ended up asking for forgiveness through tears, and faces a possible motion of censure against him already supported by more than 70 deputies.
In his defense, Hoyle argued that several deputies and the police warned him of violent threats against them for not defending the Palestinian cause more firmly.
In the midst of the troubled waters, Suella Braverman entered the scene.
The former Home Secretary was expelled from the Government by Sunak, whom she had accused of weakness in immigration policy.
The Prime Minister's promises to ignore the European Court of Human Rights and persist in his efforts to deport irregular immigrants to Rwanda were not enough.
He wanted an even harder line.
This Sunday, Braverman wrote in the
Daily Telegraph,
after the parliamentary episode
,
that “Islamists, extremists and anti-Semites are now in control of the situation.
“They have harassed and pressured the Labor Party and our institutions [by Parliament], and they intend to subjugate our country.”
His article was the spark that sparked Anderson's comments, but the controversy is far from over with the deputy's expulsion.
Scottish nationalists are calling for another emergency parliamentary debate to be held this week to demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
If Hoyle accepts, he would violate parliamentary rules for the second time, much to the irritation of the Conservatives.
Neither way out is good, neither for him nor for Starmer, who would once again be forced to control rebellion and unrest in his own ranks.
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