A Nottinghamshire MP has said protests outside asylum seeker hotels are 'just human nature'. Lee Anderson, the Conservative MP for Ashfield and Tory Deputy Chairman, told the BBC's Political Thinking podcast recent protests outside of hotels housing asylum seekers were a display of 'human nature', prompted by what he called 'sudden changes' in communities.
The most notable of these protests was in Knowsley in February, where 15 people were arrested after violent clashes injured a police officer and two members of the public, but locally, demonstrations and counter-demonstrations have taken place in Mansfield and Long Eaton. Mr Anderson previously said he would continue naming hotels housing asylum seekers, despite The Refugee Council arguing this was detrimental to Home Office policy intended to guard the safety and privacy of those housed in hotels.
The Daily Mail has reported that speaking to the BBC's Political Thinking podcast, Mr Anderson said: "These aren't far-right extremists, they're just normal family people from some of these towns and villages that are upset that overnight 200 or 300 young men have arrived.
"They're saying things to young girls and I know there's been a few attacks and some horrible incidents. Of course people are going to be concerned, that's just human nature. At the end of the day, when you live in a community you expect to be safe and you don't like sudden change, that's how humans behave."
Similarly, Mansfield MP and Nottinghamshire County Council leader Ben Bradley previously said he 'totally understands the feelings' of residents who chanted 'out' outside a hotel being used to house asylum seekers in Mansfield. He did, however, condemn the actions of protesters, adding "no-one wants to see what could be intimidation or those kinds of protests".
Lee Anderson recently also said a family he was trying to help with budgeting were going to McDonald's "two or three times a week" despite using a food bank. The Conservative MP for Ashfield secured a debate in Westminster Hall on the subject of food poverty on Wednesday, March 1, with much of the debate focused on the use of food banks, a subject which Mr Anderson has previously spoken about after saying that most of those earning more than £30,000 shouldn't need to use one.
Speaking to the BBC's Political Thinking with Nick Robinson podcast, he added: "Things were more expensive I think back in the Seventies. Food was definitely more expensive, relatively speaking people were paying a lot more of a percentage of their wages on food then, that's just how it was.
"A lot of the miners went out for a drink as well, they liked the odd pint. We had one holiday a year, which was a caravan in Skegness. We had a garden full of vegetables, [with] chickens at the bottom for the eggs and that was our food bank, our garden was our food bank so if we were short of anything my dad went in the garden or allotment and got the food out.
"We didn't think we were in poverty. Perhaps if some people today could go back in a time machine and see how we lived, they'd think we were very, very, poor. But I didn't see that at the time."
When host Nick Robinson proposed that many would see his view as 'unsympathetic' to people who are struggling, he replied: "The point I was making was people were more resourceful when I was growing up as a child, not just in Ashfield but probably all over the country.
"They were more resourceful. My parents were the children of men that had fought in the war, they'd gone through very, very difficult times.
"So it was a different culture, there was a different outlook on life. And they made do.
"My dad always said to me - if you need more money, go and work a weekend shift, do a bit of overtime. It wasn't 'complain on Facebook or Twitter or go and do a TikTok video or just complain to government', it is your responsibility if you want to have children you pay for them, if you want nice things you pay for them."
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