Lee Anderson’s top three spats with Reform

Well, well, well. The rumours turned out to be true. This morning the former deputy chairman of the Tory party — who lost the whip last month for refusing to apologise for ‘Islamophobic’ comments — defected to Reform UK. The red wall Rottweiler told reporters that ‘constituents like my mum and dad told me they could not vote for me’ unless he jumped ship, adding: ‘I want my country back.’

A magpie for news headlines, Anderson has generated some rather colourful examples in recent months. The MP has told asylum seekers to ‘f*** off back to France’, been dubbed ‘30p Lee’ after taking a controversial stance on food banks and in 2019 was even caught setting up a fake doorstep chat with a friend. And never mind the defection news, Anderson managed to rather annoy members of the media this morning after admitting that he had been ‘throwing you lot off the scent’ after he had initially denied he was joining Reform.