Daniel Kawczynski: Tory association condemns MP's tweet

Daniel Kawczynski deleted his tweet

A Conservative association has said it wished to "dissociate" itself from comments made about Ukrainian refugees by their MP on Twitter.

Daniel Kawczynski claimed that "British left-wing parties" were making "illiterate and immoral" calls for the UK to take in more people.

The Shrewsbury and Atcham association said it had found the tweet "offensive".

But, the MP's position was not to "denigrate" refugees, it added.

The group wrote it understood Mr Kawczynski's intention was to "put forward a position whereby the UK provides maximum assistance to neighbouring countries".

They added the limitations of Twitter - where posts are a maximum of 280 characters each - meant his argument couldn't be "succinctly" put and "the net result was a tweet which many including us found offensive".

The UK has been criticised for taking in about 1,000 refugees so far, but the prime minister has defended the response saying an upcoming scheme will allow Britons to take Ukrainians into their homes.

On Wednesday, Mr Kawczynski, MP for Shrewsbury and Atcham, tweeted: "British Left wing parties demand Britain takes in more Ukrainian refugees. This is illiterate and immoral.

"When war is over Ukrainians will need to return home to rebuild their country. We should be supporting Ukrainian refugees in frontline states like Poland & Romania."

It prompted senior Conservative MP Simon Hoare to say he "did not speak for the Tory party".

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Mr Kawczynski, who has since deleted his tweet, said the priority for the UK government should be to "financially support countries like Poland to help in looking after these millions of citizens who have fled tyranny".

"I wanted however with the point I made on Twitter, to underline that President Putin is deliberating targeting civilians in residential areas because he wants to engineer panic and fear leading to the withdrawal from the region of millions of Ukrainians.

"This of course will be a green light for him in his attempts to either carve out vast geographical junks to be incorporated into Russia, or to control Ukraine as a puppet client state the way he does with neighbouring Belarus. "

Questioned about Mr Hoare's comments on BBC Radio Shropshire, the MP, said "I think I'm going to leave Twitter because you can't really explain yourself in 240 characters."