The former deputy chair of the Conservative party, Lee Anderson, has defected to Reform UK, said the party’s leader, Richard Tice.
Anderson’s defection to the rightwing populist party was announced by Tice at a central London press conference on Monday.
Anderson lost the Tory whip after claiming Islamists had “got control” of Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, and that he had “given our capital city away to his mates”.
Anderson, whose constituency is Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, becomes the only MP to sit for Reform, which grew out of the Brexit party after the 2016 referendum and has links to Nigel Farage.
You can’t expect 30p Lee to stay with a party for a full government term, surely?
On the one hand, I do actually like that he puts personal values and policies over party loyalty; I wish we would see more politicians be willing to cross the aisle if their party shifts away from their own values. I’m not a fan of the party system in general. On the other hand, I despise his values and policies - and those of the Tory and Reform parties - and I hope he fades into irrelevance.
This is definitely a blow to Rishi Sunak. A little over a year ago he personally selected 30p Lee as vice-chairman of the Tory party and now he’s defected. That’s a huge political embarrassment - and Rishi was already looking weak.