Lee Anderson, the newly-appointed deputy Conservative Party chairman, has said he would support the return of the death penalty because “nobody has ever committed a crime after being executed”.
The Ashfield MP, whose new role prompted controversy given his opinions on a series of issues, told The Spectator magazine that capital punishment has a “100% success rate”.
The death penalty for murder in the UK was outlawed permanently in 1969, with it totally abolished for all crimes in 1998.
Anderson was handed the position by Rishi Sunak during Tuesday’s reshuffle.
Dubbed “30p Lee” for his claim food banks are not really necessary because people can cook meals for 30p, Anderson has also criticised England footballers for taking the knee.
In an interview with the magazine a few days before his appointment, Anderson was asked whether he would support the return of the death penalty,
“Yes,” he replied.
“Nobody has ever committed a crime after being executed.
“You know that, don’t you? 100% success rate.”
Anderson argued that heinous crimes — such as the murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby in 2013 by Islamist extremists Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale — where the perpetrators are clearly identifiable should be punished by execution.
Adebolajo was given a whole-life term and Adebowale was jailed for a minimum of 45 years for running over and stabbing the British Army soldier in south-east London in broad daylight.
Anderson told the magazine: “Now I’d be very careful on that one (the return of the death penalty) because you’ll get the certain groups saying: ‘You can never prove it’.
“Well, you can prove it if they have videoed it and are on camera – like the Lee Rigby killers.
“I mean: they should have gone, same week. I don’t want to pay for these people.”
The last people executed in Britain were Peter Allen and Gwynne Evans on August 13 1964.
The UK has signed up to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which prohibits the restoration of the death penalty.
Anderson, a former Labour councillor who was elected to parliament in 2019, also suggested using Royal Navy frigates to return to France those arriving in small boats across the English Channel.
Anderson said migrants arriving unlawfully in Britain should be returned the “same day” to where they came from.
He said that during a visit to Calais last month he met migrants referring to Britain as “El Dorado”.
“They are seeing a country where the streets are paved with gold – where, once you land, they are not in that manky little fucking scruffy tent,” Anderson said.
“They are going to be in a four-star hotel. And they know that Serco is buying up houses everywhere, to put them in for the next five years. Why wouldn’t you come?”
Asked for his solution, he replied: “I’d send them straight back the same day.
“I’d put them on a Royal Navy frigate or whatever and sail it to Calais, have a stand-off. And they’d just stop coming.”
The former miner said, despite facing criticism in some quarters for his opinions, he found voters often agreed with him.
“If I say something that is supposedly outrageous in that place [the Commons], I get back to Ashfield on a Thursday, people will come out the shops and say, ‘You say what I’m thinking’,” he added.
“Maybe some of my colleagues think I’m a little bit too divisive.
“But I’m of the mind that half the population will hate you, whatever colour you wear.”