UK Conservatives suspend a lawmaker after he accused London’s mayor of being controlled by Islamists

By DANICA KIRKA
Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — The U.K.’s governing Conservative Party has suspended ties with one if its lawmakers after he accused London Mayor Sadiq Khan of being controlled by Islamists as tensions over the Israel-Hamas war roil British politics. The party said on Saturday that Lee Anderson was suspended after he refused to apologize for remarks made about Khan in a television interview on Friday. The action means that Anderson will sit in Parliament as an independent. He was a deputy chairman of the Conservatives until last month. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and other senior Conservative leaders had come under increasing pressure to reject the comments. The chairwoman of the opposition Labour Party called Anderson’s remarks “unambiguously racist and Islamophobic.”