Lee Anderson (British politician)

Lee Anderson (born 6 January 1967) is a British Conservative politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Ashfield, Nottinghamshire since 2019. Prior to his parliamentary career he was a Labour councillor in Ashfield and later a Conservative councillor in Mansfield after defecting to the party in 2018.

Early life and career

Anderson was born in Nottinghamshire, attending John Davies Primary School and Ashfield School. His father was a coal miner. Anderson worked as a coal miner for 10 years and then volunteered for Citizens Advice for another decade.

Local political career

Anderson was a longtime member of the Labour Party and was elected as a councillor in the 2015 Ashfield District Council election, representing Huthwaite and Brierley ward. He was suspended in February 2018 by the local branch of the Labour Party after receiving a community protection warning by the council for using boulders to block members of the Traveller community from "setting up camp at a site in the area". The following month, Anderson defected to the Conservative Party which he stated was a response to the "takeover" of the Labour Party by the "hard-left" particularly through the left-wing political organisation Momentum. He was elected as a Conservative councillor on the Mansfield District Council representing the Oakham ward between 2019 and 2021.

Parliamentary career

In July 2019, he was selected as the Conservative candidate for Ashfield for the 2019 general election. He supported Brexit in the 2016 UK EU membership referendum. Anderson campaigned on this as well as on education, crime, healthcare, and halving the foreign aid budget.

During the campaign he was criticised for staging a door knock. Prior to the visit, Anderson was recorded on his microphone instructing a man to "make out you know who I am, that you know I'm the candidate but not that you are a friend". The CEO of Full Fact, the fact-checking organisation, stated that "Misleading campaign techniques from parties and candidates won't only harm those who are caught out, but could damage voter confidence in our political system". He was also criticised for calling for "nuisance tenants" in a council estate to be evicted into tents in a field and forced to pick vegetables. The Labour Party compared his idea to "forced labour camps". Anderson was also one of three Conservative Party candidates investigated by the party over claims of antisemitism during the election campaign. The investigation was opened on the grounds that he was an active member of a Facebook group in which other members supported Tommy Robinson and promoted George Soros conspiracy theories. The results of the investigation were not made public but Anderson later attended online training sessions by the Antisemitism Policy Trust charity to improve his understanding of antisemitism. He apologised for being a member of the group and reported that he had left the group when the initial allegations were made.

Anderson was elected as MP for Ashfield in the 2019 general election with a majority of 5,733. The seat had previously been represented by Labour's Gloria De Piero who stood down at the election. He had previously worked as her office manager for five years. Anderson was the first Conservative to represent the constituency since the 1977 by-election.

He is a member of the Common Sense Group, an informal group of Conservative MPs which formed in the summer of 2020. Following the publication of an interim report on the connections between colonialism and National Trust properties, including links with historic slavery, Anderson was among the signatories of a letter by the group in '' The Telegraph'' in November 2020. In the letter, the signatories accused the National Trust of being "coloured by cultural Marxist dogma". In response the All-Party Parliamentary Group Against Antisemitism issued a briefing paper to all Conservative MPs warning against using the term "cultural Marxism" as it may "inadvertently" act as a "dog-whistle for the far-right". In the same month, Anderson attended a breakfast meeting at Downing Street with Prime Minister Boris Johnson and five other Conservative MPs. He later tested positive for COVID-19 forcing those who attended to isolate.

Anderson announced via social media in June 2021 that he would not watch any England national football team matches at Euro 2020 in protest at the players' decision to take the knee (a symbolic gesture against racism) before matches. He stated his opposition was because he felt that the action risked "alienating traditional supporters" and supported Black Lives Matter which in his opinion was a "political movement whose core principles aim to undermine our very way of life". In the same month, in a debate on the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, Anderson accused the Traveller community in Ashfield of thievery stating, "...the Gypsy encampments that we are talking about in places such as Ashfield are not the traditional, old-fashioned Gypsies sat there playing the mandolin, flogging lucky heather and telling fortunes. The Travellers I am talking about are more likely to be seen leaving your garden shed at 3 o’clock in the morning, probably with your lawnmower and half of your tools. That happens every single time they come to Ashfield". In November 2021, Anderson voiced his support for offshore processing of asylum applications in the Falkland Islands and lobbied an immigration minister on the subject. In May 2022, he falsely stated that the majority of migrants crossing the English Channel illegally were economic migrants. When told that the Home Office had concluded that the majority were refugees, he blamed the "old failing asylum system" and accused the migrants of lying to falsely seek asylum.

He was one of 99 Conservative MPs to vote against Covid passes in England in December 2021.

In May 2022, Anderson was criticised by opposition politicians, Conservative politicians, food poverty campaigners and charities for suggesting in parliament that there wasn't "massive use for food banks" in the UK and what use there was related to a lack of teaching on budgeting and cooking. He also invited opposition MPs to visit a foodbank in his constituency where he claimed that meals could be made for 30p a day and that also provided a mandatory teaching course to its users. Anderson's comments earned him the nickname "30p Lee". The founder of the foodbank Simon Martin commented that the teaching course was optional and stated that "people do know how to cook, obviously, because people have been eating and surviving before we've been intervening with food parcels" but that providing free guidance on economic cooking may help. The 30p figure came from a batch-cooking session made by a team led by a professional chef which stretched an initial £50.24 shop into 172 meals. Martin commented, "It illustrates the point you can produce healthy meals heaplybut it's not in the capacity of every family, and not easy to replicate in every household. It presupposes you're buying in bulk, cooking with big catering trays and have the storage". Anderson later commented via social media that his comments had been misinterpreted. Food journalist and activist Jack Monroe hinted at legal action against Anderson after he commented in an interview that "She's taking money off some of the most vulnerable people in society and making an absolute fortune on icthe back of people".

The following month, he claimed that Prime Minister Boris Johnson was the victim of "a witch hunt led by the BBC" shortly after the results of a Conservative vote of confidence in Johnson's leadership was announced. In July 2022, Anderson withdrew his support for Johnson over his handling of the Chris Pincher scandal.

Anderson backed Kemi Badenoch during the July 2022 Conservative Party leadership election. After Badenoch was eliminated, he supported Liz Truss.

In October 2022, Anderson replaced Esther McVey as chair of the Blue Collar Conservative caucus. Later that month, while on Mike Graham’s Talk TV show while discussing potential Labour Party candidate Eddie Izzard and Izzard's transgender journey, Anderson stated he “wouldn’t follow him (Izzard) into the toilets”.

Personal life

Anderson is married to Sinead and has two sons. She is a Conservative councillor on Mansfield District Council representing the ward of Eakring since 2019. Sinead has cystic fibrosis and has previously received a double lung transplant for the condition.

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Anderson, Lee
Living people
1967 births
UK MPs 2019–present
Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
People from Ashfield District
British coal miners
British Eurosceptics