Christ, where do I even start with Lee Anderson?
Picture this: 4am alarm clock, fourteen hours underground in pitch black tunnels where one wrong move could literally kill you. That was Tuesday for coal miners back when Britain actually made things. The humour was darker than their coal-stained fingernails, and the only pronouns anyone cared about had four letters and would get you kicked off Twitter today.
Anderson – Reform UK's chief whip and professional pot-stirrer – gets this dreamy look when he talks about those days. "It was brilliant," the 58-year-old tells me from his cushy Westminster office, which feels like a different planet from the Nottinghamshire pits where he used to graft.
The Lads Who Built Everything
"There was a camaraderie, there was a togetherness, there was a working-class bond." He's talking about his old mining crew like they were war buddies. Which, honestly, they kind of were.
These are exactly teh voters Reform thinks will carry them into Downing Street. Anderson describes them as "patriotic, law-abiding (until they had a few jars on a Saturday night) and massively aspirational." They wanted their kids to climb higher than they did. That's how you measure real progress, he reckons – when each generation does better than their parents.
Makes sense, doesn't it?
Anderson represents Ashfield in the East Midlands – snatched it from Labour's Gloria De Piero – and he's basically a political street fighter who lives for the chaos. Social media scraps, Commons debates, TV punch-ups. The man thrives on conflict like some people thrive on coffee.
From Pit to Parliament (Via Three Different Parties)
Here's where it gets interesting. Anderson's done something almost impossible in modern politics: he's been elected four times in the same area while switching parties three times. Labour councillor, then Tory MP, now Reform's only parliamentarian. His vote share went up each time.
"So that tells you a lot," he says with a grin that suggests he knows exactly what it tells you.
The man insists he hasn't changed – everyone else has. Labour abandoned the working class, the Tories fumbled the Red Wall after Boris grabbed it in 2019. Anderson just followed his voters wherever they were heading.
And here's something that'll blow your mind: The Morning Star – that's the socialist newspaper for anyone who thinks The Guardian is too right-wing – keeps asking to interview him. Not their first request either.
"It's not as daft as it sounds," Anderson explains. "There are people from both ends of the political spectrum who are looking at Reform UK and thinking, 'Is that the party for me?'"
Snowflakes vs. The Real World
This is where Anderson really gets going. After Labour bottled their £5billion welfare cuts because their own MPs rebelled, Reform smells blood in teh water.
Anderson thinks today's generation could learn from his mining days: "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."
Then he drops this bomb: "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."
Harsh? Absolutely. But Anderson's betting that more people agree than disagree.
"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."
Living Dangerously
Anderson follows one simple rule that explains everything about his political career: "When I go to sleep at night I want to have said everything I wanted to say that day."
This philosophy has gotten him into serious trouble. Called for bringing back the death penalty as deputy Tory chairman in 2023. Got suspended from the Conservatives for saying Sadiq Khan was controlled by Islamists. Still thinks the London Mayor "needs to go" because "he's destroying this capital city."
Does he care about the backlash? "If it gets me in trouble, then so what? I'm human."
The polls suggest his approach is working. Reform's sitting on a 10-15 point lead heading into their Birmingham conference, which feels more like a victory parade after their local election success.
But Anderson knows talk is cheap. "If we're going to make those promises when we win in 2029, we've got to deliver on those promises. We're going to live by the sword and die by the sword."
From the pits of Nottinghamshire to the corridors of Westminster, Anderson represents something that terrifies the establishment: authentic working-class rage with nowhere left to go but up.
Whether that's brilliant or terrifying depends entirely on where you're sitting.
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