Lee Anderson is the Conservative MP for Ashfield, having first gained the seat for the Conservatives in 2019 with a majority of 5,733.
In March 2024, having previously lost the Conservative whip for controversial comments he made about Sadiq Khan, he joined Reform UK becoming the party’s first MP.
The Ashfield constituency is found to the west of the county of Nottinghamshire and covers Sutton in Ashfield, Kirkby in Ashfield and Eastwood. It had previously been held by the Labour Party in every General Election since the mid 1950s. This part of the Red Wall was captured by the Conservatives in 2019, with seven out of ten voters here backing Brexit. It was once represented in Parliament by the Labour Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon.
Lee Anderson was appointed deputy Chair of the Conservative Party by Rishi Sunak in February 2023.
In this post, Anderson has acquired a reputation for making controversial comments. In August 2023, Anderson commented that any asylum seekers who disliked being housed on the Bibby Stockholm barge “should f*** off back to France”.
Week-in-Review: The Bibby Stockholm is a floating case study in political failure
In November 2023, after the UK supreme court ruled that the government’s flagship Rwanda deportation plan is unlawful, Anderson said the government should “ignore the law”.
“We should just get the planes in the air right now”, he said.
Does Rishi Sunak have a Rwanda ‘Plan B’? Because his backbenchers do
Born in 1967, Lee Anderson was educated at Nottingham technical college. He previously worked as a coal miner, and comes from a family of miners, many of whom were involved in the 1984 miners strike.
He then worked for the citizens advice bureau, and later served as office manager for the former Labour MP for Ashfield, Gloria De Piero.
Anderson joined the Conservative Party in 2018, in protest against the Labour party’s approach to Brexit and the party’s move to the left under Jeremy Corbyn. He formerly served as a Labour councillor in Ashfield, and later as a Conservative councillor in Mansfield.
In 2021 he announced that he would not be watching the England football team for the first time, as it took part in the European Football Championships. He was critical of the players ‘taking the knee’ before kick off and likened this to the players supporting a political movement.
Anderson has been vocal in calling for the return of the death penalty in the UK.
Married with two children, he is Vice Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Brazil.
Email – lee.anderson.mp@parliament.uk
Website – www.leeanderson.org.uk
Twitter – @ashfield_lee
