The former deputy leader of the Conservative Party, who was suspended from the party for comments about Islamism, has defected to the British Reform Party, founded by Nigel Farage.
Lee Anderson is the first UK Reform Party MP to announce his move to the party at a Westminster press conference on Monday morning. Mr Anderson said he was proud of his country’s achievements and said commonplace views held by millions of Britons, such as concerns about mass immigration and crime, were far less common than the media and the Westminster political class claimed. He said it was not controversial.
The blue-collar former Tory, who serves as deputy leader and is known for his straightforward, no-nonsense demeanor and for using vernacular English not often heard in the bars and lobbies of Westminster, said he was now focused on winning the party. . He will win the seat again in this year’s general election. He also said he was “disappointed” by the Conservative Party, which lost a large number of voters in the last UK general election under Boris Johnson, and said he would like to win other similar seats.
Characterized as the seats of the “red walls,” these regions once had strong industrial bases that were subsequently destroyed by the out-migration of manufacturing. While these regions traditionally have large left-wing “red” votes, they can be socially conservative and relied on the Conservative Party to deliver Brexit in 2019.
On Monday, March 11, 2024, in London, England, Reform UK leader Richard Tice has left the party, and former Conservative Party MP Lee Anderson announced at a press conference that Anderson will be defecting to Reform UK. Mr Anderson’s defection threatens to draw right-wing voters away from Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party in the next general election, with the pro-reform party’s recent rise in approval ratings in national opinion polls.Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Since then, the Conservative Party has removed Boris Johnson and, after a series of painful challenges, finally installed ultra-rich Rishi Sunak as leader and prime minister. Despite his clean and uncontroversial leadership style, public support has fallen to historic lows.
Speaking at Leigh Anderson’s asylum press conference this morning, Richard Tice, leader of the Reform UK Party, said: And where does this start…the red wall? Millions of people hear about us and say, “Thank you for reforming.” ”
Mr Tice said Mr Anderson was a “champion” of the red wall, “a person who fully understands the red wall and is trusted by voters to be clear, basic and common sense, to tell things as they are, no nonsense, no waffle.” ” he said.
Anderson was a former Labor Party member who left the party over concerns about its shift to the far left, so he would be useful to the Conservatives as an emissary to the Red Cliffs seat. These are Conservative voters who were once in Labor seats. As part of this process to position Mr Anderson as the Conservative party’s spokesperson for working-class voters, he became the party’s deputy chair in February 2023.
Despite the Conservative Party’s efforts to expand its appeal to new demographics, it has failed to live up to the actual views of those voters, at least the views that the Conservatives have promoted as representing their interests. It seems so. Mr Anderson was suspended by the party earlier this year for agreeing with comments made in February by former interior minister Suella Braverman, already the victim of an internal war in the party seeking to strike back against the globalist centre. And now anti-Semites are in charge. ”
Anderson underlined his remarks by adding that the frequent Hamas and Palestinian marches in London show the extent to which the city is controlled by “Islamists”. London’s Sadiq Khan, whom Mr Anderson named in his comments, called the remarks “Islamophobic, anti-Muslim and racist”, and Mr Anderson was suspended from his party and issued an apology. commanded.
Speaking at the asylum on Monday, Anderson addressed the episode, saying:
…Like millions of people in this country, I feel like we are slowly letting go of our country. We are abandoning our way of life, allowing people to erase our history, and literally surrendering our cities to a few people who hate our way of life. We are allowing people into this country who will never integrate or adopt British values. Parliament doesn’t seem to understand what many British people want, and frankly some people need to go out more.
I made some comments about the Mayor of London a few weeks ago that led to me being stripped of the Conservative party’s whip. And let me be clear right now: I don’t apologize. It’s no secret that I’ve been discussing with my Reform friends for some time that Reform Britain represents the millions of people across the country who don’t feel heard. It provided me with an opportunity to speak in Congress. This may sound offensive to liberal elites, but it’s not offensive to my friends, family, and constituency…
Anderson said the culture war pushback was not up for debate, and that concerns about high numbers of legal and illegal immigrants, police inaction, and high crime were completely uncontroversial. “I cannot be part of an organization that suppresses free speech. Many of my colleagues there, in the Conservative Party, have privately supported me on this,” he said. Ta.
British Reform Party leader Richard Tice predicted further defections would continue unless the next general election was imminent.
Farage’s party continues to rise in opinion polls as Conservatives tear themselves aparthttps://t.co/cpRGhfCD3j
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) February 28, 2024
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