Meet your MP — Lee Anderson

Is there no end to MPs’ bullying, harassment, sexual misconduct, unaccountability or misbehaviour in general? How much do you actually even know about your local MPs?

This is Lee Anderson, Conservative MP for Ashfield.

LEE ANDERSON MP

🌳 Conservative MP for Ashfield

▪ MP since 12 December 2019 (elected 1 time)
▪ Majority: 5,733
▪ Voting record
▪ Registered Interests
▪ Salary: £81,932.04

Lee Anderson. | UK Parliament - Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0)

NICKNAMES:

“30p Lee” or “the worst man in Britain”.

KNOWN FOR:

▪ Feb-2018 – While serving as a Labour councillor on Ashfield Council, Lee Anderson was handed a four-month suspension by the party locally after placing boulders to deter travellers from setting up camp at a site in the area. (source)

▪ Mar-2018 – He quit Labour and joined the Conservatives, blaming campaign group Momentum for his decision to defect to the Tories. (source)

▪ Nov-2019 – As a Tory candidate during the general election campaign, he posted a video on Facebook calling on “Nuisance” council tenants to be forced to live in tents and pick vegetables. (source)

▪ Nov-2019 – During the same general election campaign, he was caught by a reporter staging a fake door-knock with a friend. (source)

▪ 2020-21 – Whilst he already earns £81,932.04 a year as an MP, Lee Anderson claimed £219,703.44 in business expenses (higher than the average £203,880 claimed by MPs), including £4,100 on travel and ‘subsistence’. (source)

▪ Jun-2021 – He announced he would not be watching the England national football team at UEFA Euro 2020 games in response to the players taking the knee before their games. (source)

▪ Dec-2021 – He broke the party whip and defied the government over plans to introduce COVID passes for entry into nightclubs and mass events in England, and the expansion of laws requiring face coverings to be worn in public places. (source)

▪ May-2022 – He suggested in the House of Commons that many food bank users need to learn how to cook and budget instead of using food banks and said that meals could be cooked for as little as 30p a day. (source)

▪ May-2022 – During an interview posted online by the deputy leader of the Reclaim Party, Martin Daubney, he alleged that food writer and activist Jack Monroe was profiteering from poor people. (source)

▪ May-2022 – In a Facebook post remembering British Army soldier Lee Rigby, who was murdered by two terrorists 9 years ago, he said that he has no problem with supporting the death penalty which he wrote “would have sent these two creatures to another place and saved taxpayers a fortune.” (source)

▪ February-2023 – In an interview, Anderson was asked his opinion on capital punishment: he responded that it has a “100% success rate” given that “nobody has ever committed a crime after being executed.” Anderson proposed that those caught murdering someone on camera should be put to death the same week without giving financial resources for their upkeep. (source)

▪ August-2023 – In an interview, Anderson expressed his opinion on the complaints about the housing conditions for asylum seekers at the Bibby Stockholm barge in Portland. He said: “If they don’t like barges, then they should fuck off back to France [...] If they don’t like the conditions they are housed in here then they should go back to France or better not come at all in the first place.” (source)

▪ October-2023 – At a fringe event at the 2023 Tory Party Conference in Manchester, Lee Anderson said he agreed with Suella Braverman that multiculturalism had failed, saying: “There’s people living on those streets who still can’t speak English after 20 years”. (source)

FAMOUS QUOTES:

▪ On dealing with anti-social council tenants:

“These people, who have to live somewhere, let’s have them in a tent, in the middle of a field. Six o’clock every morning, let’s have them up. Let’s have them in the field, picking potatoes or any other seasonal vegetables, back in the tent, cold shower, lights out, six o’clock, same again the next day.” (source)

▪ While staging a fake campaign door-knock with a friend:

“Make out you know who I am and that you’re not a friend, alright? I’m in the staff car park have a quick look. See you in a minute.” (source)

▪ On not watching the England football team at the Euro 2020:

“The FA and the England football team have made a big mistake in supporting the taking of the knee before football matches ahead of the European Championships. The FA, Premier League and footballers now run the risk of becoming like the Labour Party and that is having nothing in common with their traditional supporters. For the first time in my life, I will not be watching my beloved England team whilst they are supporting a political movement whose core principles aim to undermine our very way of life.” (source)

▪ Addressing anti-Brexit activist Steve Bray who was demonstrating peacefully in Westminster:

“You’re nothing but a parasite. We’ve established that. You’re a scrounger. Why are you here dressed like a tramp?... I’ll rephrase that... if you smarten yourself up, you’ll make a good tramp.” (source)

▪ Blaming food poverty on the lack of cooking skills:

“There is not this massive use for food banks in this country. We have generation after generation who cannot cook properly — they cannot cook a meal from scratch — and they cannot budget.” (source)

▪ Out of touch? His answer when asked what he was having for dinner:

“I’ve had a sandwich.” (source)

▪ On the suggestion that Jack Monroe sells a lot of books:

“She’s taking money off some of the most vulnerable people in society and making an absolute fortune on the back of people.” (source)

▪ Likening the government to Titanic band:

“It’s like the band on the Titanic. Playing the same tune and ignoring the obvious.” (source)

▪ On death penalty:

“Nobody has ever committed a crime after being executed. You know that, don’t you? 100 per cent success rate.” (source)

▪ On asylum seekers being housed in barges:

“If they don’t like barges, then they should fuck off back to France... I think people have just had enough. These people come across the Channel in small boats. If they don’t like the conditions they are housed in here then they should go back to France or better not come at all in the first place.” (source)

▪ On migrants not speaking English:

“Well, it depends… if you’re rich, if you come from a decent background, if you’ve got to university, if your family are businessmen, and you come from an ethnic background, then multiculturalism quite obviously has worked.
“Because you’ve got plenty of people from different backgrounds in Parliament, in positions – judges, lawyers, solicitors, brain surgeons, what have you.
“But if you come from the lower end of society where you live on a little terraced street in Derby or Nottingham where people haven’t lived together, where there’s people living on those streets who still can’t speak English after 20 years, then multiculturalism has not been a success.
“This is not about foreign people coming here and living in their own little communities and not integrating properly. We see it with the Brits as well.
“If you come and live in this country, you should live a British way of life, but it’s OK to retain your own country, that’s perfectly normal, but you should be British as well, and that’s not always happened.” (source)

FACTS:

▪ A former coal miner and a long-time Labour Party member, Lee Anderson was first a Labour councillor in Ashfield, in 2015, before defecting to the Conservative Party in 2018. (source)

▪ He was a vocal Brexiter during the Brexit referendum campaign and supported Vote Leave.

▪ He was preceded as a Member of Parliament for Ashfield by Labour Brexiter Gloria De Piero, who he used to work for as an office manager.

▪ He was chosen by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to be Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party in February 2023.

IN THE PAPERS:

RELATED NEWS:

CONTACT:

▪ facebook
▪ website
▪ phone: 0207 219 3000
▪ email: lee.anderson.mp@parliament.uk

GOING FURTHER:

Sources:

▪ Text: This piece was first published in PMP Magazine on 23 May 2022 and updated on 8 August 2023.

▪ Cover: Flickr/UK Parliament - Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0). - Lee Anderson MP. (Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.)