A petition on a Tory grassroots website demanding Lee Anderson has the whip restored has passed 10,000 signatures, organisers say.
The Ashfield MP was suspended from the Conservative Party over the weekend after refusing to apologise for claiming “Islamists” have “got control” of London Mayor Sadiq Khan.
The Conservative Post website launched a petition calling for Mr Anderson to be reinstated which editor Claire Bullivant said has now passed 10,000 names.
She told the Express: “I was suddenly flooded by messages from our readers who were appalled that one of their favourite MPs was suspended so I set up the petition.
“The members and the grassroots are screaming for proper conservatism but so many MPs seem deaf to it. Just look where we are in the polls, the MPs aren’t listening.
“Lee Anderson may not have said it in the prettiest choice of words but he only said what millions across the country are thinking. So to then suspend him feels like a real kick in the face.
“You only have to look at London’s streets every weekend. Lee Anderson is a man of the people who says it how it is.
“We need more brave MPs who will stand up to the mob and speak for the vast majority of the British people who want to remove terror-supporting groups from British streets.”
The former Tory deputy chairman yesterday admitted his original remarks to GB News were “clumsy”.
But Mr Anderson added: “If you are wrong, apologising is not a sign of weakness but a sign of strength.
“But when you think you are right you should never apologise because to do so would be a sign of weakness.”
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said Mr Anderson had been deprived of the Tory whip because his “choice of words wasn’t acceptable, it was wrong”.
Mr Khan branded the Ashfield MP’s remarks as “racist, anti-Muslim and Islamophobic”.
Mr Anderson, a standard bearer for the Tory right, will now sit as an independent unless he defects to another party.
Reform UK leader Richard Tice hinted that the outspoken Red Wall MP would be welcome in his party.
