Lee Anderson’s defection has damaged the Conservatives more than they realise

The conversion of a former Tory deputy chairman to Reform UK has provided a beacon for others members disgruntled at Rishi Sunak’s leadership – and succour to those who think a rightward shift will save the party from an electoral wipeout, says Sean O’Grady

Now Reform’s first MP, Lee Anderson has joined a party that ‘despises modern rainbow-flag Britain, its multicultural society and progressive values’ (AFP via Getty Images)

The best bit of analysis on Lee Anderson’s defection to Reform UK so far has been provided by, erm, Lee Anderson.

Before he had the Tory whip removed, and was still Rishi Sunak’s licensed attack dog, a sort of XL Bully patrolling the Red Wall to intimidate Labour canvassers, Anderson was very lucid about the futility of supporting what is now his new party: “Reform is not the answer. It leaves the door open for Sir Keir Starmer to get into No 10, and undo all the hard work we have tried to do so far.”

Leaving aside the bit about “hard work”, Anderson is entirely right, and he will soon enough observe the results of his not-that-surprising move on his former mates when the general election eventually comes round. He will damage the party that helped get him into parliament, just as surely his previous defection from Labour in 2019 – he was once a Corbynite local councillor – helped Boris Johnson snatch the usually safe constituency of Ashfield from Labour after decades of possession.

The reverberations of Anderson’s move are already being felt in the Conservative Party. Anderson always claims he has lots of Conservative friends who’ve been messaging their support and, sad to say, that’s all too believable, given the current complexion of the membership and some of its MPs. Some will be mulling and murmuring about defection themselves, though probably less than a half-dozen would be nihilistic enough to go for it.

But the rumours will persist and destabilise Sunak. Some want to oust the prime minister. Well, ironically, appointing Lee as deputy chair wasn’t the wisest move, and then he was poorly handled – but that is far from Sunak’s only perceived crime.

Yes, indeed, there really are people who think that the party needs yet another new leader, and that that person, possibly even Boris Johnson (somehow), would have enough time before a winter election to turn things around for them. It is that level of delusion that is the real threat to the Conservatives’ long-term survival, not Tice and his little band of malcontents.

More evident is yet another push to try and get Sunak to adopt the usual menu of hard-right demands: deeper tax cuts, funded or not; exiting the European Convention on Human Rights (or at least a referendum on it); using the Royal Navy to tow migrants back to France; banning marches that Tories don’t approve of; scrapping trans rights, and general “woke stuff” about being free to say racist things; and a Commons vote on hanging (it’s a populist wedge issue, so why not?).

The hard right fervently believe that those policies would work, would have few if any downsides, and be so wildly popular that the British people would give the Tories a landslide at the next election, or at least a working majority, in tearful gratitude at their brave patriotism. It is cakeism on steroids – populist, but not actually popular stuff, because Britain is not the country they think it is.

Anderson as a symbol of, and mouthpiece for, such ideas was once thought useful to Sunak – until he wasn’t, when he went too far with his Islamophobia. Now, even though he is in a different party, he is still a potent symbol of the Conservatives’ extremism and divisions. And the British voter has long been wary of parties that are extremist and divided.

That Sunak couldn’t control his dangerous attack hound and get him to apologise to Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, for remarks about his being controlled by Islamists merely makes the prime minister look weak and helpless. All Sunak can plead is that his party’s discipline and sense of purpose has declined so rapidly that it has become impossible to lead.

This is true – but it also means that the present Conservative Party is, for those same reasons, unable to govern the country. It stumbles from crisis to crisis, the prime minister lurches left and right by the month, and the constant flow of rows about racism – the latest being some disgusting remarks about Diane Abbott by its largest donor – confirms that the party is not well attuned to the manners and ways of Britain of today, the nation it seeks to govern.

Indeed – and Anderson is an excellent example of this – it is a party that despises modern rainbow-flag Britain, its multicultural society and the progressive values adopted spontaneously and happily by so much of civil society: business, banks, charities, the churches and the rest of the political world, including the beleaguered centre and centre-left of the Conservative Party.

These people – the Andersonites – sincerely believe that Sunak, Jeremy Hunt and (especially) David Cameron are dangerous liberals intent on destroying the UK. This is all summed up in Anderson’s telling phrase: “I want my country back.” The sense of unconscious entitlement is quite poignant.

Having said that, there is a minority of atavistic voters who will take their cue from Anderson and vote for Reform, rather than for Sunak or just abstaining – and, just as Anderson previously predicted, that will simply make the Labour landslide even bigger. Reform UK’s stated aim is to destroy the Tories in their present form, and what Anderson has done, directly and indirectly, will help Reform, but also Labour and the Lib Dem, do precisely that.

Come what may, Anderson will be all right. Even if he is booted out at the election, he’ll have his £100,000 salary for his job as a GB News presenter to fall back on. If he’s lucky, he’ll be the leader of a tiny parliamentary group.

The former colleagues he is leaving behind in the Conservative Party won’t be so fortunate. They’re about to get mauled.