Reform UK chairman Lee Anderson has revealed his dream job is Speaker of the House of Commons, a prospect that would alarm rival MPs as much as the thought of Nigel Farage entering Downing Street.
When asked if there is a position he dreams of winning, Mr Anderson said: “Don't tell Sir Lindsay Hoyle, but Speaker of the House.”
Contempt for party leaders
The 59-year-old former miner does not hide his disdain for the leaders of the major parties who have not fielded candidates against Mr Farage in this week’s Clacton by-election. He is in no doubt why they are staying away – and it is not because they are fans of comedy challenger Count Binface.
He said: “They’re frightened, they're a bunch of cowards, and they're a disgrace to our country.” The former miner insists that “if they thought they could beat him, they'd be standing.”
Dismisses by-election speculation
If Mr Farage is returned to Parliament, an investigation into a £5million gift, received before he became an MP, could be reopened. However, Mr Anderson dismisses any possibility of this culminating in another by-election.
He said: “There’ll not be another by-election. That would make a farce of the whole parliamentary system, wouldn't it?”
Reform MPs sit in the Commons near a host of MPs from small parties, such as the Liberal Democrats, the Greens and the SNP, as well as independents. Mr Anderson has not been impressed by what he overhears and considers many to be “nutjobs”.
He said: “You think, ‘My goodness, these people are in here making laws and making decisions… and they are lunatics, literally lunatics.’”
Assessment of rivals
Speaking in an interview with the Sunday Express, he gives a frank assessment of Reform’s challenge on the Right, Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain. “There’s only one party that can stop the boats,” he said. “It’s not Restore, because they're never going to be in government.”
Mr Lowe, he claims, is “not in it to win it – he's in it to spoil it… He’s a one-man band.”
Mr Anderson, who is chairman of his party, is one of seven Reform MPs – excluding Mr Farage who has left the Commons to fight the by-election. He thinks that number will increase. He predicted: “There're going to be more parliamentary by-elections. I think we should pick a couple of those up. I always said we'd end this Parliament on 10 MPs. I still think that.”
However, he dismisses any possibility of former Labour voters who once gave the Conservatives a chance returning to Kemi Badneoch’s party. They voted Tory “with a trembling hand”, he said, and “then got their hand bitten”.
This former Labour activist, who became an icon for Boris Johnson’s successes in the Red Wall when he was elected as a Conservative in 2019, is now a cheerleader for Mr Farage’s Reform revolution. He is not intimidated at the thought of taking on big beasts from long-established parties.
Describing his experience of seeing major Labour figures up close, he said: “After about a year, you sit there in the chamber and you think, ‘These are all thick, these people.’”
