Rishi Sunak to face Keir Starmer at PMQs after Lee Anderson row

Likely to come up at PMQs this week is the row over former Conservative deputy chairman Lee Anderson.

During his weekly GB News show on Friday, Anderson claimed “Islamists” had “got control” of London Mayor Sadiq Khan, the first Muslim mayor of the city.

After refusing to apologise for the remarks – arguing that to do so “would be a sign of weakness” – he had the Conservative whip removed. He is now sitting as an independent MP for his constituency of Ashfield.

Anderson had been responding to an article by Suella Braverman, in which the former home secretary claimed “the Islamists, the extremists and the antisemites are in charge now”.

When speaking about the situation on BBC Radio York on Monday, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak denied the Tory party has “Islamophobic tendencies” and condemned Anderson’s comments as “unacceptable” and “wrong”.

No 10 later said it had been wrong for Anderson to conflate “all Muslims with Islamist extremism”.