Who is Lee Anderson? The MP who’s become Reform UK’s first MP

By admin On Mar 12, 2024

Former Conservative MP Lee Anderson has joined his third political party in less than a decade after defecting to Reform UK.

A former miner, Mr Anderson started as a Labour councillor in his native Ashfield in 2015 where he also worked for the then-Labour MP Gloria de Piero.

Three years later he was suspended from the local party in Nottingham for allegedly using boulders to stop a group of travellers settling in the area – and defected to the Conservatives a month after.

He took his former boss’s parliamentary seat with a majority of 5,000 as part of Boris Johnson’s “red wall” intake of MPs in 2019.

And despite a string of contentious comments, he was given the job of party chairman by Rishi Sunak in 2023.

Just over a year later, however, he lost the Tory whip for saying “Islamists” have “got control” of London mayor Sadiq Khan.

From calling his now-party leader a “pound shop Nigel Farage” to saying migrants on the Bibby Stockholm should “f*** off back to France”, Sky News looks back at some of the controversies Mr Anderson has found himself in.

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Richard Tice is a ‘pound shop Nigel Farage’

Despite calling him one of his “friends in the Reform Party” on Monday, it was only two months ago that the 57-year-old called his new party leader a “pound shop Nigel Farage”.

Speaking on GB News in January, he said he “gets on with him reasonably well” but added: “He’s not Nigel Farage. He’s not the leader that Nigel Farage was.

“I agree with one of my constituents, who said to me earlier today he is a bit of pound shop Nigel Farage.”

He said Mr Tice needed to “pipe down a little bit” amid tensions between the Tories and Reform and claimed his actions were helping Sir Keir Starmer become prime minister at the next election.

The comments came after Mr Tice said at a news conference that the Conservatives and Labour are “two dies of the same socialist coin”.

‘Islamists’ have ‘got control’ of London mayor

Mr Anderson’s expulsion from the Tory party came after he was accused of racism over comments he made about London mayor Sadiq Khan and pro-Palestinian marches in the capital.

Again speaking to GB News, he said: “I don’t actually believe that the Islamists have got control of our country, but what I do believe is they’ve got control of Khan and they’ve got control of London… He’s actually given our capital city away to his mates.”

Mr Khan accused Mr Sunak of being “complicit” in racism for failing to condemn Mr Anderson‘s comments that “pour fuel on the fire of anti-Muslim hatred”.

He said the claim was Islamophobic and sent the message that Muslims were “fair game” when it came to racism.

Mr Anderson refused to apologise for the remarks despite a wave of criticism.

Bibby Stockholm migrants should ‘f*** off back to France’

As the government battled with the courts to get migrants on to the Bibby Stockholm barge in Portland, Dorset, last year, Mr Anderson waded into the row.

After it emerged around 20 had been granted legal reprieve not to board the boat, he told the Express: “If they don’t like barges then they should f*** off back to France.”

“I think people have just had enough,” he added. “These people come across the Channel in small boats… if they don’t like the conditions they are housed in here then they should go back to France, or better not come at all in the first place.”

When questioned about whether his use of the “F-word” was in bad taste, Mr Anderson told Mr Farage on GB News: “No… it’s borne out of frustration.

“It’s borne out of me being absolutely furious. It’s not just me that’s being furious, it’s my constituents and millions of people up and down the country.”

Downing Street also backed his use of the expletive.

People who use food banks ‘cannot cook properly’

In May 2022, Mr Anderson got the viral nickname of “30p Lee” after he claimed food banks are largely unnecessary because the main cause of food poverty is a lack of cooking and budgetary skills – and said that nutritious meals could be easily cooked for 30p a time.

“I think you’ll see first-hand that there’s not this massive use for food banks in this country,” he told the House of Commons.

“You’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget.”

The comments attracted criticism from poverty campaigners, ministers and opposition MPs – but Mr Anderson continued to question food bank usage regardless.

In a tweet last year, Mr Anderson used one of his members of staff to double down on his point that nurses earning around £30,000 a year don’t need to use food banks.

Mr Anderson posted: “She [Katy] is single & earns less than 30k, rents a room for £775pcm in Central London, has student debt, £120 a month on travelling to work saves money every month, goes on foreign holidays & does not need to use a foodbank. Katy makes my point really well.”

However, the tweet was met with significant backlash by fellow social media users who accused him of using his employee to make a political point.

As the hashtag “Poor Katy” started trending on Twitter, Labour MP Dawn Butler claimed Mr Anderson’s tweet was a form of “bullying and harassment” and said she had reported him to the Commons authorities.

Boycott of England game in ‘taking the knee’ row

Mr Anderson also hit the headlines when he said he would not watch England in the Euro 2020 championships over the players’ decision to take the knee.

He said the anti-racism gesture was a “political movement” that risked alienating traditional football supporters.

“For the first time in my life I will not be watching my beloved England team whilst they are supporting a political movement whose core principles aim to undermine our very way of life,” he said in a Facebook post.

Even when Gareth Southgate’s team got to the final, Mr Anderson said he would not tune in, although he admitted he might check the score on his phone.

Clashes with ‘Stop Brexit’ man Steve Bray

Mr Anderson is also known for frequently clashing with “stop Brexit” man Steve Bray – a pro-EU protester who uses a megaphone to shout “Stop Brexit” at MPs.

In one run-in, Mr Anderson branded Mr Bray a “parasite” and stole his hat.

He later challenged Mr Bray to settle their differences in a boxing ring, telling The Telegraph’s Chopper’s Politics podcast: “He’s a nuisance, and I’ve got a challenge for him.

“Meet me in the boxing ring, let’s do three rounds, and if I win, he never protests out there again.”

‘Nuisance tenants should pick vegetables in a field’

Mr Anderson achieved notoriety as a Labour councillor even before entering parliament after defecting to the Tories and then suggesting “nuisance tenants” living on a council estate should be evicted into tents in a field to pick vegetables during the 2019 election campaign.

He appeared to win support for these views from one man whose door he knocked on – but it emerged he had called the householder ahead of the visit and told him to “make out you know who I am, that you know I’m the candidate but not that you are a friend”.

Mr Sunak chose Mr Anderson as deputy chairman despite the MP criticising his approach to unlawful immigration.

In 2023, WhatsApp messages seen by Sky News showed him comparing the government to the “band on the Titanic” in a heated debate between colleagues about whether the party was doing enough to tackle the issue of small boats crossing the Channel.

Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner quipped at the time that Mr Anderson had been “handed a deck chair” while Labour MP Zarah Sultana said the Conservatives were “scraping the barrel” to fill government appointments.

Anderson ‘everything wrong with the Conservative brand’

Mr Anderson’s time as deputy chairman was not without controversy among his own colleagues.

One MP told Sky’s deputy political editor Sam Coates that he was “everything wrong with the Conservative brand presently”.

The MP added: “He seems to rejoice in deliberately provoking and making aggressive simplistic statements that fail to recognise the complexities of the issues facing the country. If this is the new Tory party, many will be forgiven for deserting it.”

But not all Conservative MPs shared the same opinion.

Mr Anderson was popular among grassroot members and voted favourite backbench MP of 2022 in a survey by Conservative Home.

Nigel Adams, the Tory MP for Selby and Ainsty, hailed the decision to make him deputy chairman as a “clever appointment”, adding: “He understands why people voted Conservative in 2019 and what makes them tick.”

Tory MP Ben Bradley also insisted he is a “good egg” who can “speak to working class people”.

“He’s absolutely authentic and parliament needs more of that,” he told LBC.

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