Oliver Dowden defends Suella Braverman over "Islamist" comments - but says Lee Anderson was in the wrong

Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden has given his backing to Suella Braverman - and somewhat to suspended Lee Anderson - over controversial comments about "Islamists".

Conservative MP Lee Anderson was suspended yesterday (February 25) after suggesting that London Mayor Sadiq Khan was being controlled by "Islamists" and refused to apologise for his remarks. Meanwhile, former home secretary Suella Braverman has said that the UK is “sleepwalking into a ghettoised society” with “Islamists” in charge.

Dowden has said that Anderson's comments were "wrong" but refused to say whether he thinks the comments made were racist. He added that Braverman's comments did not "cross the line" for an apology.

The cabinet minister told Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips: "What he [Anderson] said was wrong and words matter, and he was given the opportunity to apologise and he didn’t do so, so therefore we removed the whip.

"What I would say is, more broadly, we also need to take very, very seriously what has been going on in the past week in parliament - we cannot allow the violence we have seen and the threats and the intimidation, whether it’s against Jewish people on the streets of this country, whether it’s in those marches, and now apparently it is coming to affect what’s going on in parliament.

"The two are related in the sense that we should not allow one to distract from the other."

Phillips then asked the deputy Prime Minister about Braverman's comments.

"When it comes to the wording used by individual Conservatives, I said I disagreed with the language used by Lee Anderson," Dowden said. "I don’t believe that the language used by Suella Braverman has crossed the line whereby she should apologise for it. No, I don’t."