Lee Anderson (British politician)


Lee Anderson is a British Conservative Party politician who has served as the Member of Parliament for Ashfield since 2019. He previously served as a Labour District Councillor in Ashfield and later and Conservative Councillor in Mansfield.

Career

Anderson, a former coal miner, was a long-time Labour Party member and served as a councillor in the Huthwaite and Brierly ward of Ashfield where he was elected in 2015. Anderson also worked as office manager for the Ashfield Labour MP at the time, Gloria De Piero, having campaigned alongside her for the 2015 and 2017 UK general elections. Unlike the majority of the Ashfield Constituency Labour Party, Anderson was a vocal Brexiteer having supported the Vote Leave campaign in the 2016 EU Referendum. He defected to the Conservatives in March 2018, later being elected as the Conservative councillor for the Oakham ward in Mansfield, a neighbouring district, following the May 2019 local elections.
In July 2019, he was selected as the Conservative prospective parliamentary candidate for Ashfield. He was elected as a Conservative MP in the 2019 general election, succeeding his former boss, Gloria De Piero, who stood down before the election. Anderson won with a majority of 5,733 votes, with the Ashfield Independent Party candidate, Jason Zadrozny coming in second place and Labour dropping to third place. This was the first time that the Conservatives had won the seat since the 1977 by-election.
During the election, he made controversial statements where in the wake of a murder on Carsic council estate, he suggested nuisance tenants should live in tents and pick potatoes. He was also caught setting up a staged door-knock encounter with a friend whilst being filmed by Michael Crick, which he later apologised for. Anderson was one of three Conservative Party candidates investigated by the party over claims of anti-Semitism during the electio campaign. The investigation was opened on the grounds that he was an active member of a Facebook group in which other members supported Tommy Robinson and promoted George Soros conspiracy theories.
In June 2020, Anderson was one of a minority of Conservative MPs to vote against the restriction of demonstrations outside abortion clinics.