WAKING at 4am to work 14 hours down a dark and dangerous pit was standard practice for legions of coal miners grafting in industrial Britain.
The only thing blacker than their hands was the humour, and the only pronouns used were “four-letter ones”.
Anderson, a former miner himself, suggests that some of today’s young snowflakes could have learnt a thing or two down the pit[/caption]
On the campaign trail with Nigel Farage in Ashfield for the 2024 General Election[/caption]
It is a time that Reform MP Lee Anderson looks back on fondly.
“It was brilliant,” the 58-year-old tells me.
“There was a camaraderie, there was a togetherness, there was a working-class bond.”
His current office in the grand Palace of Westminster might be of a different world — and a fair bit cushier — but his days spent deep below the ground in Nottinghamshire are never far from his mind.
The lads he used to work with are the kind of voters his party hopes will carry them all the way into government.
Anderson describes them as “patriotic, law-abiding (until they had a few jars on a Saturday night) and massively aspirational”.
He adds: “They wanted their children to do a little bit better than them, and that’s progress, that’s how you measure progress in a community — if the next generation do better than the mum and dad and the grandma and grandad.”
Anderson, who represents the constituency of Ashfield in the East Midlands — previously held by Labour’s Gloria De Piero — is a political street fighter who relishes battling his enemies on the airwaves, on social media and in the Commons.
‘Common sense’
But it is as a bridge to working-class communities that his value to Reform leader Nigel Farage could really lie.
This “pit-to-Parliament” backstory will be the common thread running through his speech at the party’s conference in Birmingham today.
That journey first saw him elected as a Labour councillor before defecting and becoming a Tory MP — and later crossing the floor to become Reform’s first ever parliamentarian.
But Anderson insists it is not he who has changed, but Labour, who once represented the working class, and the Tories, who stole the Red Wall vote under Boris Johnson in 2019.
He says: “I’ve stood for election four times in my area.
“Twice for council, twice for Parliament, and the same people have voted for me every single time and my vote share has gone up every time and I’ve been in three different parties.
Reform is a working-class party which isn’t bothered where you were born, what education you’ve had, what employment you have had. We just want the best for family, community and country.
Lee Anderson
“So that tells you a lot.”
While Reform is often characterised by critics as a party of the hard Right, Anderson is proud that they are increasingly being backed by former Labour voters.
“I like to think of us as a working-class party,” he tells me.
“A grassroots working-class party who aren’t really that bothered where you were born, what education you’ve had, what sort of employment you have had.
“We just want the best for our family, our community and our country.”
As I sit down with Anderson, he reveals that he has just had a request for an interview from socialist newspaper The Morning Star.
And it is not the first time.
Why would this bible of the Marxist hard Left be interested in a Reform MP?
Anderson says: “It’s not as daft as it sounds to be honest, because there are people from both ends of the political spectrum who are looking at Reform UK and now thinking, ‘Is that the party for me?’.”
The MP is often dismissed by snobbish sections of the media as a caricature.
Others see him as the “Red Wall rottweiler” — most at ease jabbing his finger at some hapless minister on the Government benches.
But in the pubs of his Ashfield constituency — which he calls the “capital of common sense” — he takes the political temperature and represents his people loudly.
Anderson represents the constituency of Ashfield in the East Midlands — previously held by Labour’s Gloria De Piero, above[/caption]
As a Conservative MP, he was suspended from the party for saying London Mayor Sadiq Khan was being controlled by Islamists[/caption]
Naturally, much of the anger there centres on immigration and the small boats crisis that has seen Reform soar in popularity.
But another issue he is most keen to talk about is Britain’s joblessness crisis and the ever-rising benefits bill.
‘Nobody to go crying to’
After Labour bottled its £5billion of welfare cuts due to a backbench rebellion, Reform spies another bruise to punch and a gap to fill.
In his own unique way, Anderson suggests that some of today’s young snowflakes could have learnt a thing or two down the pit.
He says: “I don’t ever recall any of our team having a day off work, because if you dropped a day off sick you didn’t get a day’s wages, simple as that.
“It’s become fashionable now to have mental health problems, to have your own counsellor, to go for therapy, to have anxiety attacks, to get down to the local benefit centre and sign on for PIP or ESA.
“It’s just fashionable.
“People complain about anxiety problems.
“Now, I’m sure that back in the day in the village I grew up in where all the men worked down the pit and the women worked the factory, and they had nowt at the end of the week, I’m sure they were stressed, I’m sure they were anxious, I’m sure they had their problems.
“We didn’t whinge or complain.
“We just cracked on and got on with it, because for us in that village that was normal.
“There was no internet, no social media, nobody to go crying to.
“We just got on with it.”
Some might bristle at his uncompromising language, but he is banking on many more people nodding along in agreement.
And the polls are on his side, with Reform commanding a ten to 15-point lead heading into their weekend jamboree, which is being treated by some as a victory lap after their local elections success.
Besides, Anderson has the advantage of not caring what the chattering classes think about his opinions.
His views can, however, draw negative attention from more sinister corners than the usual London lefty types — and he and other Reform MPs are being given personal security for the conference.
Does Anderson ever think twice before sticking his head above the parapet?
“I live by a simple rule,” he replies.
“When I go to sleep at night I want to have said everything I wanted to say that day.
“Sometimes in the past you’ve thought of things and wanted to say that to a particular person and have not said it — and you spend the rest of the day thinking, ‘I wish I would have said that, but now I don’t want to say it’.
“If it gets me in trouble, then so what?
“I’m human.”
And his mouth has indeed got him into his fair share of trouble.
As deputy Tory chairman he went rogue by calling for the return of the death penalty in 2023.
He was later suspended from the Conservatives for saying London Mayor Sadiq Khan was being controlled by Islamists.
He remains forthright: “The man needs to go.
“He’s destroying this capital city.”
I’ve stood for election four times. Twice for the council, twice for Parliament. The same people voted for me every time. My vote went up every time. I’ve been in three parties. That tells you a lot.
Lee Anderson
People may not like some of the things he has to say, or the way he says them, but Anderson is unmoved.
He says: “I know I’m saying the right thing and I feel like I’m backed up by millions of people out there in the country as well.”
But he is well aware that talk is cheap, and that the white light of scrutiny would be on any Reform government to act on the raft of pledges made in recent months.
“If we’re going to make those promises when we win in 2029, we’ve got to deliver on those promises,” he says.
“We’re going to live by the sword and die by the sword.”
Lee Anderson with The Sun’s Political Editor Jack Elsom[/caption]