Reminders of Lee Anderson admitting to being offered “a lot of money” to defect to Reform UK have been circulating after the former Tory deputy chairman did precisely that.
Anderson accused the Conservative Party of stifling “free speech” by suspending him for widely criticised remarks about London Mayor Sadiq Khan as he announced he had joined the right-wing party.
The MP for Ashfield in Nottinghamshire, who was kicked out of the Tories last month over an Islamophobia row, said he found it “unpalatable” that he had been disciplined for “speaking my mind”.
In an open attack on the party that had formerly elevated him to deputy chairman, he claimed other Tory MPs share his views but will not stick their heads “above the parapet”.
As recently as January, Mr Anderson had branded Mr Tice a “poundshop Nigel Farage” and said Reform was “not a proper political party”.
He also fessed up to being offered “a lot of money” to defect to the party at the end of last year during a “Lagers with Lee” meeting at Cambridge Rugby Club after saying: “We’re not taping this, are we?”
In the recording of the event, hosted by South Cambridgeshire Conservative Association, the Tory MP for Ashfield revealed that he had been approached to defect to Reform UK.
Anderson told activists at the gathering: “Now there is a political party that begins with an R that offered me a lot of money to join them. I say a lot of money, I mean a lot of money.”
It was previously rumoured that the party was offering five times the MP salary to current politicians to attract them over, speculation that has been denied by Tice.
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