Lee Anderson warns former Conservative colleagues that 'tsunami of Reform MPs' will be elected at next election

Mr Anderson defected to Reform from the Conservatives this week after having the Conservative whip suspended for his comments saying Islamists had ‘control’ of London Mayor Sadiq Khan.

The Ashfield MP and his new party leader Richard Tice were in Ashfield today (Friday) aboard the Reform UK battlebus, rallying support for the MP’s new party.

The large crowd that turned out at the starting point at Morrison’s in Kirkby confirmed Mr Anderson has plenty of support on his home patch.

And he said his becoming Reform’s first MP was just the start.

He said: “At the next election, a tsunami of Reform candidates are going to be turned into MPs.

"The momentum is with us, just look at the turnout we have here, my inbox has been absolutely incredible in the past week and I really think with Richard, Nigel (Farage) and myself leading the charge, more and more people are joining us, nearly 3,000 this week alone, and people are coming out in their droves to shake our hands and say thank you for saying what we think.

"People are coming to Reform because they want their country back, it’s as simple as that, they’re sick to death of this woke madness.

"We want to live in a green and pleasant land, we want our schools to function properly, we want to get a GP appointment when we want one and we want to go back to how things were and, more importantly, put more money in their pockets with a fairer taxation system.”

Mr Anderson also looked back with pride on his first term as MP for Ashfield with the next election set to take place this year.

He continued: “Since I’ve been an MP I’ve secured £62m of town’s fundng for this area, another £6.75m of highways funding, we’ve got another £20m of funding for Kirkby over the next 10 years, Kirkby College is going to be rebuilt, I could go on and on.

"I’ve delivered more to this area than any other MP previously.”

Fellow Nottinghamshire MP Mark Spencer (Con), who represents Sherwood, said in response to Mr Anderson’s decision to join Reform, that it would simply increase the chances of Labour winning the election.

But Mr Anderson said: “It’s not up to Mark, it’s up to the electorate, it’s as simple as that.

And Mr Tice added: “The reality is, there’s no difference between the two main parties now, they’re both forms of socialism, high tax, high wasteful Government spending, nanny state and wokeness that drives everybody mad.

"No-one voted for mass immigration and this net-zero plan is destroying jobs, it’s sending our money overseas, it’s a catastrophe for our economy and we’ve got to make work pay and get the money back into people’s pockets.

"We’ve got to stop all this gender ideology madness and we’re the only people brave enough to tell it as is.

"Places like Ashfield is real Britain, not in Westminster, it’s up and down the country and what I think people celebrate is that people like Lee bravely speaks up for millions and millions of people who basically feel they’ve been silenced and smeared and labelled and we’ve had enough of it.”