Lee Anderson fuels Reform defection talk as he meets with leader Richard Tice
Lee Anderson’s meeting with Richard Tice is the latest hint he could join Nigel Farage’s Reform UK
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Your support makes all the difference.Lee Anderson fuelled speculation he is to join Nigel Farage’s Reform UK by meeting with the party’s leader a day after losing the Tory whip.
The former Tory deputy chair has been linked with a move to the former Brexit Party since being suspended by the Conservatives for Islamophobic comments about Sadiq Khan.
Mr Anderson met Mr Tice, who succeeded Mr Farage as leader, at a Holiday Inn hotel, at junction 28 of the M1 in South Normanton, Derbyshire on Sunday, GB News reported.
It came just 24 hours after he had been suspended by the Conservatives.
On Tuesday Mr Anderson launched a fresh attack on Mr Khan, accusing him of enjoying protest scenes in Whitehall which cause disruption to parliament and cast the government “in a bad light”.
He also dropped the latest hint that he could defect to Reform UK, as the insurgent right-wing party piles pressure on Rishi Sunak.
In his latest comments made during an interview with Channel 5 news, Mr Anderson was asked if he would take back last week’s remarks.
He said he would “probably change my words slightly”.
He added: “I think it’s all political, I think he almost enjoys seeing these scenes on Whitehall and on Parliament Square, which disrupts parliament, which puts my government in a bad light. I think he just turns a blind eye. It’s politics.”
Mr Anderson lost the Tory whip at the weekend after he claimed “Islamists” had “got control” of the mayor of London.
Pressed over whether he would join the right-wing Reform UK party, the former Labour councillor declined to comment but told GB News he had “been on a political journey”.
He said: “You’ll say ‘Lee Anderson rules out/doesn’t rule out joining the Reform party’, so I’m making no comment on my future.”
He also said he intended to stand at the next election.
His comments came as senior Conservatives faced mounting pressure to describe his attack on Sadiq Khan as “Islamophobic”.
Radio station LBC abruptly halted an interview with illegal immigration minister Michael Tomlinson, accusing him of failing to answer the question.
In questions from broadcasters on Tuesday, Mr Tomlinson refused 11 times to explain why he thought Mr Anderson’s comments were “wrong”.
His Home Office colleague Tom Pursglove also refused to use the term, telling Times Radio: “I don’t think Lee personally is racist but what he said was unacceptable.”
The prime minister and others have condemned Mr Anderson’s comments, but have so far shied away from calling them “Islamophobic”.
Labour has criticised that stance as “weak”, with one frontbencher saying the prime minister was “in hock” to “a strange coalition of MPs”.
Bridget Phillipson, the shadow education secretary, said on Tuesday: "He [Anderson] should know better than that, he has been a senior figure within the Conservative Party.
“But I think it speaks to Rishi Sunak’s weakness on this that his response has been wholly inadequate.”
On Tuesday morning, Downing Street said the PM regarded Mr Anderson’s comments as wrong because they had conflated all Muslims with Islamist extremism.
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