How to buy an MP part II - Buying Lee for 30p

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Back in November, I wrote a post titled “How to buy an MP”, in which I detailed how the far-right Nigel Farage-owned British political party Reform UK were hatching a plan to buy the loyalty and affiliation of sitting Conservative MP Lee Anderson (who was also deputy chair of the party. The guy on the right in the picture) so he could stand as a reform candidate at the next election. As bait on the hook, he was also promised a job if he lost, with pay equivalent to five years' salary as a constituency MP, which is a minimum of half a million pounds. The post also detailed some of the nefarious tactics used by Reform to try and worm its way into elected office. I’ll link it here, but if you don’t want to read it, it’s the sort of pictures you get in your heads as to why the British public doesn’t trust the political system. 

Some key developments in this saga have occurred in the last couple of weeks, and most people will not be happy with them. 

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For context on the title, Anderson once claimed that you could cook a meal for 30p when challenged on the government’s lack of support for the cost-of-living crisis, earning him the nickname of 30p Lee.

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On 24 February 2024, Anderson had the Conservative parliamentary whip suspended for his refusal to apologise for comments in a GB News discussion on an article by former Home Secretary Suella Braverman where she had stated that "The truth is that the Islamists, the extremists and the antisemites are in charge now". Anderson alleged that "Islamists" controlled London, its Mayor Sadiq Khan, and the Labour Party leader Keir Starmer, saying: "I don't actually believe that the Islamists have got control of our country, but what I do believe is they've got control of Khan, and they've got control of London, and they've got control of Starmer as well."

Two days later, Anderson released a statement saying that while his wording may have been clumsy, he would not apologise for his comments and would stand by everything he said. He was criticised almost unanimously by almost all main political parties. All that is, except Reform. 

It turned out that Anderson had held a private meeting with Reform UK leader Richard Tice to negotiate his defection on the 25th of February, the day after all of this happened. Anderson would not have been in a stronger position to make demands than he was back in November of last year, but let’s make no mistake in thinking that he was in a powerless position, far from it. Reform (and its precursor, the Brexit Party) has been searching for a way into Westminster since the end of the 2010s. They’ve tried legitimate means of winning by-elections, which didn’t work; they’ve attempted to influence soft power via deals with the Conservative Party that left them high and dry once they were of no use to the government. They’ve tried to buy influence by offering lucrative deals to those willing to sell their allegiance. Finally, they’ve cracked the code, winning power by purchasing the affiliation of figures who should be removed from any kind of public office as quickly as humanly possible, in the same way that the Reclaim Party did with Andrew Bridgen in April of last year. 

Anderson joined Reform just two months after saying that “Reform wasn't a real party” and that “Tice was just a pound shop Nigel Farage”. 

I’m kicking myself for all of this. I read the tea leaves months ago, and betting odds would have likely paid a decent amount. Not quite the level of money that Anderson will likely have been given as part of these negotiations. There is still an extremely high chance that he will lose his seat when an election eventually rolls around, and he will still have wanted insurance in case this happens, Which brings us to the more dangerous element of this whole debacle. The power that Reform will now consolidate over the media landscape in Britain. 

With Anderson joining Reform, the party's three most prominent members, Nigel Farage, Richard Tice, and him, all have primetime shows on one of Britain's most prominent news TV channels. Technically, GB News isn't a news channel, but they only say that so they don't have to follow OFCOM rulings as closely. It literally has the word news in its name! With this, the three have a platform to broadcast to tens of thousands of people live, plus millions more on social media, where GB News excels in spewing out lies and propaganda. 

As of the end of February, Anderson has been paid £103,350 for his appearances on GB News. That's £240 an hour for eight hours a week. His daft salary also includes a £50 a month bonus for keeping the GB News logo in his Twitter profile. 

I don't think we need to worry too much about Anderson lasting much longer as an MP. He did an open-top bus tour around his constituency in Nottinghamshire this past weekend and was heckled before being told to fuck off by one of the more sensible members of the public in Ashfield.

What should worry us more is the general gravitas another big political name like Lee Anderson can bring to a group such as Reform. Within twenty-four hours of his defection, Reform gained another 1,000 paid members and rose to 14% in some polls, firmly establishing them as Britain's third most popular party. At £25 a year, the membership is accessible, and the group doesn't need the money with its billionaire ownership. The membership fee is more of a symbolic gesture that supporters feel they can easily make. 

While I wouldn't necessarily listen to polling, this chain of events combined with the socio-economic conditions of Britain today is already snowballing into a situation that gives legitimacy to the far right and allows them to enter the mainstream in a way that the likes of UKIP and the BNP had been unable to do before them. 

More MPs are likely to join Reform if the conditions suit them, and hopefully, they will fail in the same way that Anderson will. This is what happens if you try to sell your soul in that manner. Eventually, people, the public, will see through it, and it will all come tumbling down.

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