Lee Anderson has provoked outrage after sending a pointed message to desperate asylum seekers being moved onto barges off the UK coast.
The first migrants arrived on board the Bibby Stockholm barge on Monday.
The group arrived at the accommodation vessel moored in Portland Port, Dorset, on Monday with more people expected later in the day.
It comes as Home Office minister Sarah Dines said the barge would be in use “imminently”, despite a series of delays.
Dines also confirmed “all possibilities” for tackling the migrant crisis are being examined, following reports that the Government is considering reviving plans to fly people who arrive by unauthorised means 4,000 miles to Ascension Island.
In a Daily Express ‘exclusive’, the Tory Party deputy chairman gave a blunt response to charities complaining about the new barge moored near Bournemouth to house asylum seekers.
He told the newspaper: “If they don’t like barges then they should f*** off back to France”, adding”
“I think people have just had enough.
“These people come across the Channel in small boats, if they don’t like the conditions they are housed in here then they should go back to France or better not come at all in the first place.”
Responding to the comments, Diane Abbott tweeted that this is “a new low even for the Tories.”
Others shared similar disdain for Anderson:
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