Once you spot it, you suddenly realise the damn thing is everywhere. "I didn't leave my party – it left me" they lament. I suppose at first glance it appears smart, the combination of active and passive tense combining to deliver a crisp retort. But it is total guff, whether employed by Ronald Reagan to great acclaim or by Shaun Woodward, to, erm less.
Today it was the turn of Lee Anderson, the Labour staffer-turned-Conservative MP and now Reform UK's first-ever representative in the House of Commons. To be fair, Anderson didn't actually utter those words, so this is projection on my part, but only very faintly.
You may recall that the Ashfield MP was stripped of the Tory whip last month for suggesting (and then refusing to apologise for it) that "Islamists" had taken "control" of Sadiq Khan, of London and that the mayor had "given our capital city away to his mates".
During a press conference this morning announcing he had joined Reform UK, Anderson doubled down on the remarks, stating: “Let me be clear right now on this stage. I will not apologise.” He added: “I want my country back.” Anderson said he had done a lot of “soul searching” over whether to defect, having previously asserted that he would not “knife the Conservatives in the back” by joining Reform.
That's not the only position on which he appears to have shifted. Anderson ruled out a by-election – despite voting in 2020 for a bill that would require any MP who switched parties to call an immediate poll in their constituency. He also previously described Reform leader Richard Tice as a 'Pound shop Nigel Farage", ('pound shop X' being another tedious political cliché).
I've a few reflections that Rachael Burford, the Standard's chief political commentator, reassures me aren't contradictory, though I'm not so sure. First, it's a curiosity: Anderson is leaving a Conservative Party that is becoming more – not less – like him, and is likely to continue on that journey for some time.
Think about it: David Cameron's Tories were socially liberal and fiscally conservative, with a focus on winning seats in cities as well as towns and rural areas. Boris Johnson was something of a queasy social conservative who wanted to spend large sums of money on grand projets, while Rishi Sunak is a proper social conservative. Looking to the future, Kemi Badenoch appears set if not eager to place culture war issues and 'anti-wokery' at the forefront of any Tory Party she were to lead.
At the same time, Anderson's defection seems to be another nail in the coffin for the idea that the 2019 general election represented a realignment in British politics. Not only are the Tories unlikely to hold on to many, or even any seats in the former Red Wall, but the poster child for that 2019 intake is no longer even a Conservative MP.
Finally, there is the prime minister, the man who – let's not forget – elevated Anderson by appointing him as deputy party chair little more than a year ago. Usually, when an MP defects, say from Labour to Tory or vice-versa, the line to take is 'good riddance' alongside liberal suggestions that the person in question was 'never really one of us'. But that option isn't open to Sunak.
There are plenty of Tory backbenchers who agree with Anderson, and the prime minister cannot effectively suggest that they too are not welcome in the party. It also makes it more difficult for Sunak to withdraw the whip should another MP say something out of turn – because there is clearly another party on the right of British politics open for business.
