Lee Anderson says Reform UK waiting for ‘green light’ as party eyes up Tory MPs for defection

After winning five seats at the General Election, Lee is confident the party will be able to attract more MPs in the coming months.

He told Patrick Christys that if the Conservatives pick a “wet” leader to lead them forward, more MPs will cross the floor.

“It’s no secret that the Conservative Party are in a little bit of trouble”, he said.

“I would suspect that some of my colleagues with hindsight probably wish they had joined Reform. They would have kept their seats in the Red Wall.

“I think it was only me out of the 219 who managed to keep their seat in the Red Wall, and I was a Reform candidate this time.

“I wouldn’t be surprised, come the autumn, when they decided who their leader is going to be - some people might come over.”

He added: “If the Tory Party choose a wet, I will have an extension built on the side of my house because I expect to be in Parliament for the next 10-15 years.

“A lot of the good guys from the Tories have gone. They lost their seats. They will probably pick a wet, and that is a green light for the Reform Party.”

Farage set out Reform’s stall in Parliament yesterday by insisting his party will hold the Government to account on the matter of immigration.

The Reform chief has made his disdain for what he perceives to be a lack of strategy from Sir Keir Starmer known.

He says the party’s pledge to “smash” people smuggling gangs sending migrants on small boats across the Channel lacks substance.

The leader of the populist party also used his speech to hit out at fellow MPs, claiming large swathes of those present in Parliament are “Rejoiners”.

Sitting alongside fellow Reform MPs Lee Anderson, Richard Tice, Rupert Lowe and James McMurdock, he told MPs: “I spent nearly 21 years as a member of the European Parliament in Brussels.

“I have to say, this place is very different indeed. It’s smaller, there is no chauffeur driven Mercedes available for each member, no large lump sums of money which you don’t have to spend on anything or show receipts for, and I wonder, perhaps that is why so many in the British political system love the European Union so much.

“It is a rather wonderful place to work. What I perhaps didn’t expect was to come here and find I am more outnumbered here with my Reform team than we were in the European Parliament.

“There are more supporters of Brexit in the European Parliament than I sense there are in this Parliament of 2024.

“This is very much a Remainers’ Parliament, I suspect in many cases, it’s really a Rejoiners’ Parliament.”