Downing Street is braced for more defections after Lee Anderson quit the party for Reform UK, with MPs warning Rishi Sunak that he “cannot pretend any longer” his strategy is working.
The former Conservative party deputy chair’s defection will alarm former colleagues worried at support draining away to the Nigel Farage-formed party. Anderson lost the party whip last month over comments he made about Sadiq Khan, which were condemned as Islamophobic.
“I want my country back,” Anderson told an occasionally chaotic Westminster press conference on Monday morning in a populism-charged address that echoed his language about the mayor of London.
Standing alongside Richard Tice, the Reform leader, a bullish Anderson, who was a Labour councillor in Ashfield before switching to the Tories to win the Nottinghamshire seat in the 2019 general election, promised to help his new party “fight back in the culture war”.
Neither Tice nor Anderson would comment directly on speculation about other defections, but the Reform leader said he would be “surprised” if no one else followed suit. While some Tory MPs said they believed the defection would not be repeated, one senior backbencher on the right of the party said they anticipated others could follow.
“I think that the red wall is pretty demoralised at the moment, not least because of what Lee has just done and I think that there will be some people from the same part of the country who might well decide to go,” they said.
The New Conservatives grouping of MPs, led by Danny Kruger and Miriam Cates, said that while they criticised Anderson’s move for making a Labour election victory more likely, it was the responsibility of Sunak and his party to keep MPs on side.
“Our poll numbers show what the public think of our record since 2019,” they said in a statement. “We cannot pretend any longer than the plan is working. We need to change course urgently.”
The defection gives Reform UK, formed by Farage as the Brexit party in 2018 after he exited an imploding Ukip, its first MP.
Even if no other Tory MPs join Anderson, his presence as an MP and as an experienced and often outspoken media performer, with a presenting job with GB News, will increase media coverage for Reform, which is polling at about 13% but has struggled to break through under Tice.
Speaking to reporters after the press conference, Anderson said he had been convinced to make the move after his parents, who live in his Ashfield constituency, told him they would not be able to vote for him if he remained a Conservative.
“I’ve got a lot of [Conservative] friends that sit on the benches with me, who have shown me a hell of a lot of support,” he said. “So I’ll be sad to leave them, but if I’m honest, unfortunately a lot of my colleagues won’t be there in a year’s time.”
Asked if he thought he would still be an MP after the election, Anderson said he would: “My mailbag tells me I’m going to win.”
He ruled out resigning to then stand for his new party in a byelection, saying this would be pointless when there might be a general election as early as May.
Addressing the press conference, Anderson used language reminiscent of that he used about Khan, in which he said the London mayor, who is Muslim, had “given our capital city away to his mates”.
“My opinions are not controversial,” he said. “They are opinions which are shared by millions of people up and down the country.
“Now, like millions of people in this country, I feel that we are slowly giving our country away. We are giving away our way of life. We are allowing people to erase our history. We are giving up our streets to a minority of people who literally hate our way of life. We are letting people into our country that will never integrate or adopt our British values.”
James Cleverly, the home secretary, said he was disappointed at Anderson’s move. “I think he’s made a real mistake,” he told broadcasters at an anti-fraud summit. “As he has said, in his own words, Reform is not the answer, and a vote for Reform will only let in a Labour government.”
