Reform has its first MP: Lee Anderson joins Nigel Farage-backed occasion

Reform UK has its first MP as we speak after Lee Anderson dramatically introduced he’s becoming a member of the Nigel Farage-backed outfit.

The former Tory deputy chair was unveiled because the occasion’s new ‘champion’ by jubilant chief Richard Tice at a press convention this morning.

Swiping at his former colleagues, Mr Anderson mentioned he ‘needs our nation again’ and had to have the ability to ‘converse my thoughts’. He mentioned there had been a ‘lot of soul looking in my political journey’ however his mother and father and his employees had all advised him to modify to Reform. 

The information is a serious blow to Rishi Sunak, and can gas Conservative panic about the specter of an implosion on the election. 

Reform UK has been creeping up within the polls regardless of the PM’s determined makes an attempt to relaunch and shut the large hole with Labour.   

Mr Anderson had been feted by Mr Sunak for his plain-speaking politics, and considered key to efforts to shore up the ‘Red Wall’.    

But he was ejected from the Tories final month after refusing to apologise for claiming ‘Islamists’ had ‘bought management’ of London mayor Sadiq Khan.

Mr Anderson, who mentioned he wouldn’t be triggering a by-election, reiterated as we speak: ‘I cannot apologise.’ 

A bullish Mr Tice mentioned he could be ‘shocked’ if extra MPs didn’t swap to Reform earlier than the election. ‘Britain is damaged and everyone knows who broke it,’ he mentioned. 

Pointing to the polls, he added: ‘We’re going up and they’re going down.’ 

Mr Anderson mentioned he was unhappy to depart his former colleagues, however predicted that in a 12 months’s time they’d be ‘sitting on the identical benches as me’. 

He accused the Tories of not standing up for ‘free speech’.

Asked for his message to Tory MPs, he mentioned his priorities had been ‘nation, constituency after which occasion’. 

Mr Tice advised a press convention in central London: ‘We want a champion, after all, of the Red Wall, somebody who fully understands it, who’s trusted by voters to inform it as it’s, no nonsense, no waffle, clear, fundamental, frequent sense.

‘And I’m delighted to announce that I’ve discovered that champion of the Red Wall for reform UK.

‘He’s additionally coincidentally going to be Reform UK’s first Member of Parliament’s within the House of Commons.

‘He is after all an individual of nice integrity, no nonsense, and is the Member of Parliament within the county of Nottinghamshire for Ashfield.’

Mr Tice didn’t rule out opening the door to Mr Anderson after his suspension, and the pair had been mentioned to have held a number of conferences.

But Mr Anderson has beforehand been lower than complimentary about his doable new chief, branding him a ‘pound store Farage’ and ‘Reform’s reply to Nigel Farage’.

He has derided Reform as ‘not a correct political occasion’, saying it’s a ‘firm’.  

Mr Anderson was deputy chairman of the Tory occasion till he resigned in January to insurgent in opposition to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s laws to revive his stalled plan to ship asylum seekers to Rwanda.

The now-independent MP has since 2019 represented Ashfield, one of many beforehand Labour seats within the so-called Red Wall the place voters switched to the Tories after Brexit to provide Boris Johnson his landslide victory.

Some Tories see Reform UK as a challenger on the normal election anticipated this 12 months, with indicators of rising assist for the occasion.

Reform UK completed in third place in two latest by-elections, though its candidate within the Rochdale contest – former Labour MP Simon Danczuk – had a poor displaying.

Mr Tice has performed up the hazard posed to the ruling occasion by Reform UK candidates and has dominated out getting into any electoral pact with the Conservatives.

He has insisted he would stand candidates in each constituency, not like in 2019 when his occasion – then the Brexit Party – stood down candidates to assist Mr Johnson.

Arch Brexiteer Mr Farage is the honorary president of Reform UK, which is searching for to draw disillusioned 2019 Conservative voters over the difficulty of immigration.

Mr Farage, who based the Brexit Party – later renamed Reform UK – in 2018, has downplayed rumours of a doable swap to the Tories.

Mr Anderson is a former coal miner, ex-Labour councillor and a dedicated Brexiteer.

The 55-year-old describes himself as ‘born and bred’ in Ashfield, the Nottinghamshire constituency he now represents within the House of Commons.

After leaving college, he adopted his coalmining father into the pits, the place he labored for 10 years.

According to a biography on his web site, Mr Anderson then volunteered at a neighborhood Citizens Advice bureau, labored in hostels for homeless care leavers, and took a job in a neighborhood MP’s workplace.

He additionally grew to become a neighborhood Labour councillor after being a lifetime occasion member.

A 2018 native newspaper report detailed how Mr Anderson was topic to an investigation by his fellow Labour councillors.

It got here after he was issued with a neighborhood safety warning after inserting boulders to discourage travellers from organising camp at a neighborhood website.

Mr Anderson quickly defected to the Tories and was later elected a Conservative councillor.

Not lengthy after, he was elected to Parliament as MP for Ashfield in 2019 as a part of Boris Johnson’s 80-seat Tory majority.