Deputy Tory chairman Lee Anderson faces fresh questions ‘over link to white supremacists’
Rishi Sunak’s new deputy Tory chairman faces mounting questions over his links to alleged Nazi-supporting members of a scooter club.
The Mirror yesterday reported Ashfield MP Lee Anderson’s links to Skegby Scooter Club, Notts. He was pictured with a club member who has worn a “white pride” T-shirt.
Controversial Mr Anderson described members as “real salt of the Earth people” who “make me feel proud to be Ashfield born and bred”. But today the Sunday Mirror can reveal Nathan Bratby, another club regular who has been snapped with former miner Mr Anderson, supports white supremacist punk bands.
And a third man, Paul Reeson, seen with a trophy and shaking hands with Mr Anderson, published a social media post telling British Muslims : “This is England, my England. If you don’t like me, or my fellow English men and women, leave our shores… or feel the wrath of the steel in my hand.”
Facebook photos of Mr Bratby show him in shirts with the logos of neo-Nazi bands Skrewdriver and Whitelaw.
Skrewdriver’s songs include White Power and lyrics praising Adolf Hitler. Whitelaw’s tracks include Fetch the Noose and a song referencing Hitler.
Mr Anderson, 56, has repeatedly praised the club and spoken particularly warmly of Martin “Fluke” Dudley, who is known as Martin Fluke on social media and was named on a leaked list of BNP members in 2007.
Just last week Dudley attended a protest staged by Mansfield Against Illegal Migrants. Twenty locals gathered at a hotel housing asylum seekers, chanting “Out! Out! Out!”
And in September, he attended the annual Weston-on-Trent Scooter rally in a T-shirt bearing an Odin’s Cross and the phrase “No remorse, white pride”. The cross, also tattooed on Mr Dudley’s calf, is an often-used white supremacist symbol.
In one photo with Mr Anderson, Mr Dudley wears a dark, yellow-trimmed Fred Perry polo shirt – withdrawn by the designer in 2020 after it was adopted as a uniform by the far-right Proud Boys. One Ashfield resident said: “It is unconceivable that Lee Anderson did not know about his past. He needs to distance himself from this odious man.”
David Hennigan, a local independent councillor said: “It just goes to show how far the Conservatives have sunk under Rishi Sunak. Lee Anderson is a divisive figure. He has upset foodbank users, nurses, teachers, anyone with decency. I didn’t think the Conservatives could sink any lower.”
Mr Bratby, Mr Reeson and Mr Anderson were all approached for comment. Mr Dudley said: “I wear what I want and have any tattoo I want, okay?”