So, Farewell then: A year of Tory Deputy Chair, Lee Anderson
Lee Anderson resigned as a Deputy Chair of the Tories after a year in post. He opposed Sunak’s Rwanda Bill because it’s not racist enough. But instead of voting against it he abstained because Labour MPs were sniggering at him.
It suggests that he doesnt have the moral fibre to be part of a far right grouping associated with Braverman and Jenrick and now Anderson says he wants his Deputy job back and quite likes Rishi really
Rishi Sunak had a minor reshuffle in early February 2023, or as many saw it, re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. Someone who did have that you view- as he had recently made the comment on WhatsApp- was Ashfield MP Lee Anderson.
‘Red Wall’ MP Anderson who sits for Ashfield will almost certainly lose his seat at the next Election but in the meantime he has had almost a year as Tory Deputy Chair.
Anderson who was a Labour member until 2018 is a hard to far right Tory MP who has frequently made comments many would see as racist about asylum seekers, is transphobic and was warned not to use the Anti-Semitic phrase ‘cultural Marxism’.
For the current period however is views on food banks are relevant. He is on record as saying that they are an ‘industry’, that they are used by people who don’t know how to cook and that a budget of 30p a day is enough to buy food.
The last comment related to the cost of food for an individual in a mass collective cooking project which sounds a bit socialist for Anderson.
Sunak who is the richest MP in Parliament probably doesn’t fully grasp the Anderson, food bank, cost of living issue. Many others will have so it’s no surprise the deckchairs on the Titanic need further re-arrangement.
After his appointment Anderson lost no time in shooting his mouth off in his new role by calling for the return of the death penalty because it is deterrent. Like other Anderson sayings this is of course evidence free. It is not currently Tory policy
The contradictions of Anderson were laid out in an Editorial in the Murdoch Times on 10th February 2023. Headed ‘Loose Cannon’ it noted the last thing Sunak needs ‘is another personality focused distraction’.
Anderson leads a group of hard right Tory MPs the Blue Collar Conservatives who claim to represent working class voters. Don’t expect to see them supporting strikes or opposing anti-union legislation though.
He has returned to back bench obscurity for the moment and if current polling is reliable he will soon be losing his seat as well. After which one suspects his GB News show will disappear as well. Perhaps he will accept cash reportedly on offer from Reform UK and depart even farther rightwards
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Anderson_(British_politician)
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