Reform MP Lee Anderson has called for Jeremy Corbyn to be deported in the Commons. Anderson, who has also been a Labour MP and a Conservative one, said:
Today over 600 illegal migrants have entered this country. They could get up to all sorts of mischief, commit crimes and maybe even acts of terrorism. So does she agree with me that these young men crossing the channel should be immediately detained and deported, along with the member for Islington?
Illegal Migration
Today Jeremy Corbyn had a pop at us @reformparty_uk MPs.
We will not tolerate this form of bullying in the Chamber.
I hit back pic.twitter.com/jUosubCsRj
— Lee Anderson MP (@LeeAndersonMP_) May 12, 2025
In response, immigration minister Angela Eagle stood by Corbyn:
The right honourable member for Islington has a complete right to his opinions and a complete right to express them… I have a great deal of respect for him. So I’m quite shocked that the honourable gentleman thinks that’s an appropriate thing to say
Corbyn’s foreign policy
What’s ironic is that there would likely be less terrorism if Jeremy Corbyn had become prime minister. This is the complete opposite of what Anderson suggests.
At one of the biggest protests in UK history in 2003, Corbyn said:
Thousands more deaths in Iraq will not make things right. It will set off a spiral of conflict, of hate, of misery, of desperation that will fuel the wars, the conflict, the terrorism, the depression, and the misery of future generations.
Corbyn seems to be on the right side of history. The 2003 invasion of Iraq led to the death of around a million Iraqis, sowed destruction throughout the country, and gave the forerunners of Daesh (Isis/Isil) fertile ground to grow. It also paved the way for the terrorism we see today, and created the regional destabilisation that eventually led to today’s refugee crisis.
The invasion was based on Tony Blair’s ‘dodgy dossier’ – a fabrication paraded as conclusive evidence across the media. And as even Blair would eventually acknowledge, the rise of Daesh was a direct consequence of the conflict he and the Conservatives voted through parliament.
Libya
As well as opposing the invasion of Iraq, Corbyn was one of just 13 MPs to vote against military action in Libya. A parliamentary report on the 2011 military intervention in Libya later vindicated Corbyn’s decision, concluding:
The limited intervention to protect civilians had drifted into an opportunist policy of regime change. That policy was not underpinned by a strategy to support and shape post-Gaddafi Libya.
Within its damning report, the foreign affairs committee concluded that the risk of extremist groups like Daesh benefiting from the rebellion should not have been “the preserve of hindsight”. Especially given the rise of terrorism following the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Anderson has got this completely backwards.
Featured image via the Canary
