MP ridiculed after incorrectly claiming that abolitionist William Wilberforce was a Tory

Tory MP and Brexiteer James Cleverly has suffered an embarrassing gaffe on Twitter where he claimed that an MP from the 1800s was a party of his party when he was actually an independent.

Cleverly, who was recently appointed as the Conservative party chair by Boris Johnson, shared a tweet last week where he marked the anniversary of the Abolition of Slavery Act coming into force on August 1, 1833, which was the culmination of a decades-long campaign by William Wilberforce.

Nothing wrong with that at all, except Cleverly should have done a bit more research or asked his scriptwriter to at least read Wikipedia, as he would have quickly learned that Wilberforce wasn't associated with any party and was an independent MP from 1780 until 1825.

Wilberforce died just days after the bill was passed by parliament but he was never aligned to any political party in the UK, which many people on Twitter soon picked up on and were more than happy to inform Cleverly of his mistake, with some even asking him to delete the tweet.

There was also plenty of mockery of Cleverly's disregard for facts.

Indy100 has contacted James Cleverly for comment.

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