PM warned over prospect of more defections after Anderson joins Reform

Downing Street is braced for more defections after Lee Anderson quit the Conservative party for Reform UK, with MPs warning Rishi Sunak that he "cannot pretend any longer" his strategy is working.

- Peter Walker, Ben Quinn

The former Conservative vicechair's defection will alarm former colleagues worried at support draining away to the Nigel Farage-formed party. Anderson lost the party whip last month over comments he made about Sadiq Khan, which were condemned as Islamophobic.

"I want my country back," Anderson told an occasionally chaotic Westminster press conference yesterday morning, in a populismcharged address that echoed his language about the mayor of London.

Standing alongside Richard Tice, the Reform leader, a bullish Anderson, who was a Labour councillor in Ashfield before switching to the Tories to win the Nottinghamshire seat in the 2019 general election, promised to help his new party "fight back in the culture war".

Confirming the move, which he had declined to rule out last month, Anderson said he had not told any Tory colleagues in advance and had given prior notice only to his family - and a few hours before the event to GB News, which pays him £100,000 a year as a presenter.

Neither Tice or Anderson would comment directly on speculation about other defections, but the Reform leader said he would be "surprised" if no one else followed suit.

Some Tory MPs said they believed the defection would not be repeated.

"I doubt that he will be joined by others," one former cabinet minister said. "Lee has his own agenda, which seems to be linked to a media career."