Lucy North/PA
Lee Anderson thought he’d delivered a mic-drop moment during a committee debate on illegal migration – only to be spectacularly corrected by someone who actually knows a thing or two about the matter.
The Reform UK MP for Ashfield has been lauded by right-wingers after he questioned why migrants from Albania are choosing to pay thousands to cross the Channel by small boats rather than forking out £28 for a Wizz Air flight.
But his “superb” intervention has been ripped to shreds by immigration expert Zoe Gardner, who points out that “humiliating” might be a better adjective for his Westminster rants.
It’s not the first time Gardner has butted heads with a clueless right-wing MP.
In September 2021, she effectively put to bed the question of why asylum seekers don’t seek refuge in the first safe country they reach, like France, after Jonathan Gullis raised the oft-touted remark.
Giving evidence on the Nationality and Borders Bill to the Bill Committee in September 2021, Gardner, who works to protect refugees at the European Network on Stateless, laid out the answer to one of the most parrotted questions by the Conservative right.
She explained that most refugees never come to rich countries like the UK, more go to other countries.
Indeed, 86 per cent of those fleeing war and persecution remain in the country neighbouring the one they have fled, such as Turkey, in the instance of Syria, or Poland, in the case of Ukraine.
Those who travel to the UK will have ties to the country, Gardner said, which is why geography has very little to do with where people end up.
Watch her response in full below:
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