Ex-Tory MP Lee Anderson defects to Reform UK

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Former Conservative deputy chair Lee Anderson has defected to Reform UK, handing the populist right-wing party its first MP.

The move, announced on Monday at a Westminster press conference, came after Anderson was stripped of the Tory whip for refusing to apologise for saying London’s Labour mayor Sadiq Khan was in the grip of Islamists.

Anderson had been Tory deputy chair until January, when he resigned from the role to rebel against Rishi Sunak’s flagship legislation to get his plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda off the ground. He ultimately abstained.

The Ashfield MP has now joined his third political party in six years. He was previously a Labour councillor before defecting to the Tories in 2018.

Anderson said on Monday “I want my country back” and insisted his views were shared by millions of people across the UK.

He added it was “not controversial” to be concerned about migration, policing, street crime, shoplifters and “hate marches” — a reference to pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

The Conservative party did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Richard Tice, leader of Reform, said Anderson would be a “no nonsense” champion for the “red wall”, the swath of traditionally Labour-voting constituencies in the midlands and north of England, many of which switched to the Tories in 2019.

At the press conference on Monday, Tice said: “Nothing works — Britain is broken, and we all know who broke it.” He accused the Tories of having “imposed” mass migration on the UK, which he claimed was making the nation poorer.

Tice said his party was making headway in the red wall, as he described his ambition to “replace the Tories as the main alternative to Starmer-geddon”.

According to the Financial Times UK general election poll tracker, Reform is polling at 11.2 per cent, up from 6 per cent in March last…