Lee Anderson’s comments on migrants boarding the Bibby Stockholm were “not unreasonable,” Alex Chalk has said.
The Tory deputy chairman told the Express: “If they don’t like barges then they should f*** off back to France.”
The incendiary comments came after 15 migrants boarded the barge in Portland, Dorset.
Twenty others have been granted a last-minute reprieve after legal challenges.
The justice secretary said Lee Anderson “expresses the righteous indignation of the British people” and added that his “indignation is well placed”.