Seven of Tory MP Jonathan Gullis's most controversial moments

With 650 MPs making up the House of Commons, it is easy for a lot of them to fly under the radar and avoid public scrutiny.

A handful become household names, mainly because they hold important ministerial positions or lead major campaigns.

Some though, gain notoriety for the wrong reasons - by behaving badly or by making controversial statements on a regular basis.

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Jonathan Gullis, the Conservative MP for Stoke-on-Trent North falls into the latter camp, and has gone viral on social media a number of occasions for his blunt takes about migrant rights and even his own constituents.

Below, we look at the Tory MP's most controversial moments:

1. Calling for asylum seekers to be housed in tents

Speaking in a debate about migration on Monday, the MP showed his support for the controversial Rwanda plan to send migrants to the country and said tents were "acceptable" places to house asylum seekers in the short term.

He said "I personally have no issue with portacabins or tents being used at all. This is still perfectly acceptable accommodation that can be used in a short term interim measure" before removing people to "a safe third country such as Rwanda".

2. Saying missing migrant children "shouldn't have come here illegally"

Gullis has previous when it comes to his takes on asylum.

In January, Labour MP Tulip Siddiq raised a query after it was revealed 200 children have gone missing from Home Office hotels.

She asked the prime minister Rishi Sunak: "Ministers have admitted that they no idea of the whereabouts of these children. Does he still think the UK is a safe haven for vulnerable children?

Conservative MP Jonathan Gullis then heckled: “Well they shouldn’t have come here illegally”.

He later defended his comments, telling The Independent that “Labour’s open door approach to illegal migration shows they’re out of touch with the public.”

He said the party was “out of ideas on migration”, adding: “I fully support the prime minister in stopping migrants claiming asylum who have entered the UK illegally, deporting them to safe third world countries like Rwanda instead, and smash apart the vile smuggling gangs.”

3. FIghting for the Rwanda plan

The government's plan to send migrants deemed illegal to Rwanda has not been without its hiccups, with courts blocking the first flights to the country last June and many human rights charities expressing concern about the plan.

So last December, Gullis tabled the Asylum Seekers (Removal to Safe Countries) Bill, which he said will make sure "the final say on legislative matters lies in Parliament, not judges in a quasi-legislative supranational court in Strasbourg" in an interview with the Telegraph.

The bill called on the government to go forward with the Rwanda plan - even if it breaks international laws.

Speaking to Nick Ferrari on LBC, Gullis said he was trying to "add to the prime minister's suite of options" to enact the Rwanda scheme and said "ignoring" the ECHR , which blocked initial flights, would "act as a deterrent" to stop people making the journey which he said endangered their lives and financed criminal gangs.

4. Clashing with Gary Lineker

Gary Lineker was recently embroiled in a storm after he was temporarily suspended from the BBC because he likened the government's language used to launch a new asylum policy to 1930s Germany.

Gullis falsely claimed the former footballer and pundit called people "Nazis".

During an interview with Channel 4 News, about the migration plans, he said: “[It’s] certainly tough and upset all the right people in the right places as far as I’m concerned.

“Let’s be clear, when I talk about upsetting people I’m talking about the Twitterati, the Wokerati of North Islington, those champagne socialists who pontificate all day.

“Those are the people I don’t care upsetting, because those are the people who want to call people up here racist bigots, Nazis, like Gary Lineker has done.”

Lineker called Gullis out for spreading misinformation:

5. Calling his constituents "scrotes" and "scumbags"

When he is not talking about migration and Lineker, Gullis has made some eyebrow-raising comments about his own constituents too - the people who elected him and have the power to do so again whenever the next general election is, no less.

In a video he released earlier this year calling for more CCTV, better street lighting and more alley gates for the area, Gullis listed areas in his constituency which needed greater security and then said:

He said: “In places like Smallthorne where we sadly see scumbags who fly-tip their filth in our community.

″In Cobridge where scrotes deal and shoot up their drugs wreaking havoc on our community.

″And in Turnstall where savages and their anti-social behaviour causes mayhem for local businesses and local people.″

6. Calling striking teaches "commies"

In January, Gullis, who was briefly an education minister in the days of Liz Truss, went on a rant about teachers who were on strike at the time over pay, claiming they are being controlled by union leaders who are "Bolsheviks and commies".

He certainly has a way with words.

7. Claiming the media has a "sick obsession" with Covid death toll

Into our time machines and to 2020 and the coronavirus pandemic, we go when Gullis apologised after - during a Twitter conversation with LBC Radio host James O'Brien- he claimed that the media has developed an obsession with the number of people that have died from coronavirus and that comparisons were being "lazily" made to the death tolls in other countries.

Gullis later apologised for his "poor choice of words", explaining that "the media haven’t explored the complexity of wide-ranging factors" when it comes to compiling numbers of this nature. He also expressed his sympathies to those that have lost loved ones during the pandemic and healthcare and key workers on the frontline.

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