Tory MP Lee Anderson and Brexit activist Steve Bray ‘to fight in boxing match’

Pro-EU demonstrator demands deputy party chairman quit if he loses bout

The outspoken Tory party deputy chairman is set to take on Westminster Remainer protester Steve Bray in the boxing ring.

Lee Anderson will spar with Mr Bray, who carries anti-Brexit placards while demonstrating with a megaphone outside Parliament and on social media, demanding the UK rejoin the EU.

The two have regularly clashed outside Westminster over Brexit and Conservative policies.

Mr Anderson, who two weeks ago called for the return of the death penalty, issued the boxing challenge to his nemesis last month, saying that if he won, Mr Bray would have to stop protesting.

Mr Bray, also recognisable from his bright blue and yellow protest hat, had initially refused to take part in the match.

But as he finally agreed, he set out a condition of his own: the MP would have to stand down.

He tweeted: “Anytime in the ring! If I win, you renounce being a Tory MP and resign, then vanish! I don’t want you protesting with me when you lose!”

Mr Anderson – voted Conservative MPs’ favourite backbencher – has previously prompted anger by questioning how many people genuinely need to use food banks.

He suggested people using them could neither cook nor budget properly.

“Anybody earning 30-odd grand a year – which most nurses are – using food banks, then they’ve got something wrong with their own finances,” he told Times Radio in December.

GB News is in talks to host the boxing bout, The Express reported.

In an interview on Talk TV, Mr Bray confirmed he had accepted the bout, saying: “I am so overwhelmed that they have made Lee Anderson deputy chairman because we all know that it will be one of the final nails in the coffin.”

He claimed he would “100 per cent” beat Mr Anderson.

Mocking Mr Bray, the MP posted a photograph of himself in a hat with a Union flag on it, saying Beaconsfield Tories had presented it to him.