Lee Anderson, pictured after yesterday’s press conference (Image: PA)
Nigel Farage has branded critics of Lee Anderson “privately educated, middle-class London snobs” – and claimed Reform UK’s controversial new recruit “represents a large chunk of this country”.
The former UKIP and Brexit Party leader also took a swipe at Sadiq Khan when challenged over the Ashfield MP’s controversial remarks about the London Mayor.
Mr Anderson today crossed the floor of the House and will now sit on the opposition benches as Reform’s only MP.
Former UKIP leader Mr Farage, interviewed by Jeremy Vine on BBC Radio 2, said: “The point about Anderson’s journey from the Labour Party, through the Conservative Party on now on to Reform, is that it isn’t just him.
“There are millions of people who have been on that journey.”
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Former UKIP leader Nigel Farage claimed Lee Anderson speaks for millions (Image: PA)
He explained: “Think of the votes UKIP got in European elections, that the Brexit Party got.
“A least half of those votes were coming from families who’ve been voting Labour since 1918. So there are millions of people on that journey.
“It isn’t just Lee Anderson, on his own, and I think he’s emblematic of a very large number of people who feel that politics in Westminster and frankly much of mainstream media, are having a very different conversation to the one they’re having around the table at tea time. And Lee stands up for that.”
Questioned about Mr Anderson’s remarks about Mr Khan, which prompted many to accuse him of Islamaphobia, Mr Farage acknowledged: “Yes, he’s blunt, of course he is.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan (Image: Getty)
“He’s a former miner. He doesn’t mince his words. And I find most of the criticism that comes of Lee Anderson, frankly, is just London, privately educated, middle-class snobbery.”
Mr Vine persisted: “But when he says Islamists have got control of the Mayor of London, do you disagree with him?”
Mr Farage, referring to pro-Palestine chanting during demonstrations in the capital at the weekend, countered: “I tell you what, something’s happening on our streets, isn’t it?
“Something has gone horribly wrong on the streets of London. And maybe, maybe if Sadiq Khan had criticised ‘from the river to the sea’ being put up on Big Ben, maybe Lee wouldn’t have said that.
Reform UK leader Richard Tice (Image: Getty)
“As I say, he speaks bluntly, from a sort of East Midlands, northern perspective and people may not like everything he says.
“But let me tell you, he represents a large chunk of this country, and particularly those 2019 Conservative voters who frankly think they were simply lied to by Boris Johnson and that the party has not delivered, and they’re angry.”
Asked by Mr Vine about Reform UK’s election strategy of “taking lumps out of the Tories”, and consequently handing Labour a large majority, Mr Farage said: “You put that question to me in 2015 Jeremy, exactly the same question.
“You said to me if people vote UKIP doesn’t that mean that Conservatives will lose seats but actually, UKIP took more Labour votes.”
Lee Anderson issues huge prediction after joining Reform
Mr Farage stressed: “At the moment, what we’re trying to do, what Richard Tice, Lee and others have tried to do, is quite simple.
“It is to become the main challenger to the Labour Party in those red wall seats.
“Even before the Anderson joined in those red wall seats, Reform is pushing 20 percent. These are now becoming three-way marginals.
“So the objective is to win as many of those red wall seats as they can. And yes, that may sound ambitious, and yes, I understand the difficulties of the first-past-the-post system but frankly, the level of upset disenchantment and anger with what the Tories have done since 2019 can’t be mended.”
