Lee Anderson On Whether Britain Is Broken Beyond Repair

28:08He says, you can leave your wallet on that table there in the restaurant and come back an hour later and it'll still be there. They would not take it because it would be three lashes and prison. Now, yeah, authoritarian.

28:22But, I mean, I'm not sure I want to live in an authoritarian state, but I think there's some lessons to be learned there. You know, if there are consequences to your actions, shoplifting is a great example in this country. If they locked them up for six months as soon as they got caught, they wouldn't do it. Nah, wouldn't be worth it for a sandwich. I'm not going to steal that bottle of whiskey or whatever because I know I'm going to get six months. They'd stop doing it. You don't have to do it for a month. They'd stop doing it. Terrence. But surely we are just talking about common sense. Yeah, just common sense.

28:54There's no common sense in Parliament at all. These are people that are representing the people. They're not, though. That place doesn't represent the people. You know, look at the Brexit vote in 2016. 75 % of MPs were Remainers, yet 52 % of the population voted to leave the European Union. That's how representative that place is, and it's worse now. So does the whole system need a reform, let alone the parties? It does, and I'm not sure how you do it. My party was in favour of proportional representation at one stage. I don't think we can have that in its purest form because somebody like Corbyn would probably get 50 or 60 seats in there.

29:39I mean, that is scary. What's his name? Zach Polanski. Oh, what, Mr. Free Open Borders? Yeah, Mr. Open the Borders. Yeah, Open Borders. He'd probably get 50 or 60 seats in there. I don't know. I mean, he'd open the door to a whole range of nutjobs coming into Parliament. That's scary. And they could have the balance of power. So we've got to stick with the system we've got, which is first past the post, and we've just got to get out there and campaign and hope that people see sense. in two or three years' time and send us back there to sort this mess out. So how will reform turn the UK around?

30:15You touched on it earlier, to be honest with you, Rob. We need to fill a cabinet full of people who know what they're doing. I mean, Nigel's always said it. I've always said it since I've been here. I can't believe these secretaries of state have got no experience in the field. They're running the country on health, education, defence, the Treasury, and they've got no experience in the field. Get some proper experts in. people that's lived their life, that's made a few mistakes and got there in the end and actually know what they're doing. And then people are out there, and they will come and help the country if called upon.

30:46That's what we need to do, fill the cabinet full of experts, trim down the civil service, sort some of them, because there's some good people in the civil service that want to do a good job for the country, but there's some that are useless. And I've had a pair in front of me in the Home Affairs Select Committee, Mycroft and, is it Ridley, what's his name? Edith's Home Office, pair of clans. I asked them some basic questions and they couldn't answer. And these are people running the Home Office. Get rid of them. You'll do that when you get in, will you? Got to, haven't you? You've got to... Would there not be some resistance?

31:21Of course there will. I hear they have quite a lot of power, the civil service. Yeah, they do have a lot of power. But, you know, we're fighting for the heart and soul of our country. You know, our civil service is... There's some good people in there, because they've contacted us with whistleblowings and stuff like that. But there's some in there. This all comes from Blair, by the way. He created not just the civil service, well, the whole civil service, police, fire service, armed forces, created a culture where we've got these woke people in charge. There's somebody in every one of these departments, Rob, whose job it is to lie awake at night, to think of stupid ideas, to implement the following day.

31:59And they do. and they're good at it. They're really good. What stupid idea can I think of tonight whilst I'm lying in bed? And they think of something completely bonkers and then they'll go and roll it out the following day. And we're paying these people huge amounts of money. How did that happen? Again, it comes from Blair. It's this soft, wet, limp-wristed, liberal, pearl-clutching, apologetic class that would just get laughed out of Ashfield. They wouldn't dare come into a miner's welfare up in Nottinghamshire or South Yorkshire, they get laughed. But these people are having a say in how our country's run and they need to get in the real world, run mixed with some real people.

32:41Yeah. I mean, I've still got one foot in the past, I know that. I can remember talking to my grandad, who's been gone nearly 40 years now, bless him, who was a coal miner in the 1930s. When war broke out, he did his bit, went to North Africa and Italy, did his four or five years, come back, got demobbed in Sheffield, walked it back to Ashfield because he was too mean to pay the bus fare, back down the pit two days later, did another 45 years underground. He would turn in his grave to see what we've done to this country, turn in his grave. Yeah. You know, all them young men in both wars sacrificed their lives, fought for our country and now we can't even stop a rubber dinger coming off our channel.

33:30We're gutless and we're cowardly and we should be ashamed. Yeah, I remember seeing that. I'm a 98 veteran on TV, basically. Yeah. What did I fight for? Lost all his friends. Yeah. Why? Yeah. For them. Over there.

33:52It makes me so angry, to be honest. I see them in there and I think you spineless, gutless bunch of MPs who don't give a toss about our country. Do not give a toss. Look after your own people. Put them first. They pay your wages. It's their forefathers that fought and died in a foreign field to keep our country safe. And you're sitting here chatting shit.

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34:58How do we create growth? You said we've got to have people better off. I'm an entrepreneur, so that's an area I'm interested in personally. Yeah. How do we create growth? Well, first of all, control immigration. I mean, they keep saying it's growth. Yeah, of course, if you import an extra million people a year, yes, you're going to make more stuff and produce more stuff. But is it profitable per GDP, per capita, per person? The way you create growth in this country is we've got to have a go at the benefits bill. We've got to get people back to work. It's no good somebody going to work all week and earning 300 quid and then having another 300 or 400 quid on benefits to top the wage up.

35:40They're not paying no income tax. They're paying a bit of national insurance. But actually, they're taking more art. Well, they're paying nothing in, literally paying nothing in. I've been doing some work on welfare because I've got a little bit of a background in welfare. We've got families in London that's getting£70 ,000,£80 ,000 a year on benefits. Not going to work. I think one of your posts, you said one of them was on 80, was it Tower Hamlets? Yeah, Tower Hamlets, yeah. Yeah,£82 ,000. Yeah,£82 ,000. And that was verified by the Adam Smith Institute as well. It's spot on. You imagine£82 ,000 a year for a family.

36:14You'd have to earn probably... $150 to get that. Well, I don't know. Probably$115 ,000. You'd have to earn that gross to take that out. Now, how many families does it take to go to work and pay income tax to pay for that$85 ,000? And bear in mind, some of these families, they're not from this country. They've been here, they've got ILR, definitely have to remain, been here five years, got that, dropped on with the old bad back. We know it happens. And then there's no wonder. They're ringing their mates up in a country 5 ,000 miles away and saying, get your send here, my duck. I'm on 85 grand a year.

36:53That's the old villagers' wages, isn't it? It is, seriously. You're on 85 grand a year, you've got a free arse. You don't do it in a car.

37:04So how do you sort that out? Stick and carrot, isn't it? I mean, there's going to have to be one. I've always said it. I mean, this again stems back from Blair, right? The tax credit system introduced in, I think it was 98 when Blair first came in, it introduced the minimum wage, which is some unintended consequences of that, and the tax credit system which topped people's wages up, which made them, which, yeah, admittedly it dragged people out of poverty overnight, hundreds of thousands of people. But what it did, it allowed people to stop working full time. They went on to 16 hours. I saw it first hand.

37:38They went up to 16 hours, and the state would then top their wages up to a 35-hour-a-week job. So not only have they dropped to 16 hours, they're no longer paying income tax, so there's no contribution to the Treasury. And the state, the taxpayer, is topping their wages up by 200 or 300 quid a week. And these people are thinking, oh, this is great, this is, I can stop at home, just work two days a week, get the same wage. You know, Bob's your uncle. but then 20 years later these same people are coming to see me and their kids have left school they've gone and so they've lost all the entitlement to the tax credit or the universal credits as we call it now and all of a sudden they're still in that 16 hour a week job entry level job on minimum wage they're not getting the three or four hundred quid a week in universal credit because the kids have gone and they're saying to me i can't afford to live and I think well that's shocking because it's the state that encouraged them to go on to 16 hours and then 20 years later, 15 years later whatever, they can't afford to live that person's been stuck in an entry level job for all them years where they should have been getting promoted, getting an extra qualification or going to another job going up to the career stage like we used to when I first started work I did about a year in a concrete factory, shoveling concrete.

39:05I was on 75 quid a week. But the men who I were working with, doing the same job, they were probably on double what I was on. I weren't jealous. I weren't mad or angry. I just wanted to earn what they was earning. So I had to prove myself. And I did. And then when I went to the pit, it was the same then. I was on one of the lower-grade jobs on 40 % bonus. I thought, no, I want to work on the cold face. I want to earn what you're earning. And I did. And that's what you did back in the day. You started on a low-paid job and you worked your way up and wanted to, you know, you saw men with a nice new car in the car park.

39:42I thought, I want one of them. But there's only one way you're going to get one. It's by working on a coalface, working seven days a week, doing 12-hour shifts, putting the hours in, and getting some money in your back pocket. You know what? You feel a lot better when you've got a few quid in your back pocket. And that's, we've lost that now. You know, we're saying to people now, these idiots across there, It's okay if you don't turn that much. We'll top your wages up or we'll give you a bit more or we'll spend another£15 billion of taxpayers' money on your benefit bill. Don't worry. What incentive is it for them people to then go to work and for employers to get good staff?

40:17You can't just stay at home. Nonsense. Is it that easy just to get people back to work? Yeah. It is? Yeah, of course it is. You stop the benefits. You stop them? Yeah. Look, if you're able-bodied, you go to work, you're not getting no benefits. It's as simple as that. I don't care if you've got a degree in psychology of wild mushrooms or anything like that, some ridiculous degree you've got, and you can't find a job and there's a psychology of wild mushrooms, you're going to get a job in McDonald's. I mean, we're going to need a lot of labourers on to sort this country out. The roads need sorting out.

40:52Don't we need to build a lot of houses? Yeah. We need to see some good jobs. Where's the materials going to come from, though? I mean, we've got to build a million and a half out. I don't know where the bricks are going to come from, the sand. I don't know where it's going to come from. We should get people back to work. It's as simple as that. No other country would put up with this nonsense. We've got a million young people out of work in this country. Some of them with just mild anxiety. They're worried about something. They're not sleeping right. I worry about stuff. We all worry about stuff.

41:24We're all on a spectrum somewhere. That's why they call it a spectrum. Well, we are. We've all got mental health problems. But one of the best ways I always found when I was young is go do something. Some people go into the gym. Some people go for a run. Some people play sports. Tell you what, how about going to work? That'll cure it. But in all cases, because there's some serious cases. If it's my own, I'm sorry. Stop whinging, go to work. Contribute towards society. Do your bit for your family, your community and your country. It's our duty. By the way, I don't know anybody who's got a degree in the psychology of wild mushrooms.

42:03I just made that one up. Reform are quite small. If you compare the size of the staff, the history of reform are, what, five, six years old? Labour, Conservatives are 100, 200 years old. Have you got the infrastructure to run this country? Well, you're set in a great place now, Rob. I mean, probably if it came three years ago, there'd probably been two or three people, not even in this building. Well, it was much smaller when interviewed Tia. So we've got this great staff now. We've got money in the bank. We have probably nearly 1 ,000 councillors. We control 10 councillors. We've got five MPs.

42:44We've got more and more people coming on board that want to help us develop policy. A lot of people have not put their head above the parapet, but they're there in the background helping. and the one great advantage we do have is you cannot blame us for anything

43:01how's that grub you because you haven't done anything exactly you can't blame us for anything so i mean everyone calls you all racists don't they yeah but that's i mean that's the default um if if you if you beat it if you beat a labor supporter in an argument the last thing they'll say is you're racist you're a fascist i actually i had a bit of a Tatar on the street down here a few months back where somebody walked by and he called me a fascist. So I thought, I'm not having this. So I went back at him. And he says, what do you mean by that? He says, oh, you're racist. I said, can you give me an example?

43:35He says, well, you're reform, aren't you? He says, and I'm a professor. He was a professor at some college. I tried to impress him. I said, look, I always like friendly feedback. Please give me an example of what we've done as a party or what I've said that makes us fascists. and he just says, F off, you're all fascist and walked off. So when you actually challenge people, they can't give you an example. It's just something. They've always done it. The left have always done it. They've always accused people of being fascists and Nazis. I had this in one of my schools. I don't know if you've seen it.

44:08One of my schools in my patch, Corridale Academy, I had a couple of parents email in to say they were disgusted at their political display on the wall. and they'd been teaching political history in year nine and they'd done a display on the wall. And at this end, they've got Mussolini. It said Nazis, far-right, fascists. The picture of Mussolini, Oswald Mosley, Nigel Farage and me. Yeah, you might find that mildly amusing. Well, surely you did. Mildly amusing. You must have found. But it's not amusing. to the parents of them children who voted for me in that class. This is how thick they are, some of these left-wing teachers.

44:52That's what I'm like. You can't compare you guys to them. So I went to see the head teacher. He had a roundup. Oh, you can imagine what he had off me. And I says, look, all I want now is for me to stand with that teacher who's done this in front of the class and have a debate, a sensible debate, and let's talk about fascists and Nazis. and I can't believe how thick your teacher is because basically half of them kids in that class, their parents would have voted for me. So by default, you're calling them Nazis and fascists as well. It's not a good thing in a place like Ashfield. No. Have you stopped laughing yet?

45:34Well, I'm laughing at the ridiculousness of it. No, you're not. Yes, I am. You're laughing because you thought it was funny. Well, it is funny in some ways. Yeah, I mean, I've got a good sense. I can see the funny side of it, the ridicule. It's funny because it's ridiculous, and here's why. Because, like you said, you've done nothing. You've not been in power. You haven't murdered a million people. No, no. You're a five-year-old party. Yeah, yeah. So that's why I'm laughing. And it's always been them world leaders to the left of politics who've committed the most horrific crimes on people. You know, look at Stalin.

46:10Look at Mao Zedong. Look at all these dictators in South America. These are the wicked people. Anyway. Is wokeism, like, dying now? Do you think it's still strong? I think our young people are fighting back now. I think we've gone through one mad generation. But a lot of the young lads I speak to now, bearing in mind, some of the 12-, 13-year-olds will be able to vote at the next election, which I think is slowly dawning on Starmer. the young lads I speak to when I go around the schools, 14, 15, 16, they're all reform. They love Nigel Farage, they follow him on TikTok, they like what I've got to say.

46:50They're rebellious. And the more a teacher stands up in the classroom and slags somebody off, the more they're going to go away and have a look at it for themselves. And then they're going to say, well, I agree with that. My teacher's wrong, which they are doing. It's back for him. And why do you think we had this, well, you call it mad, you know, this sort of woke culture? What happened? I don't know. Everything comes from America, don't you, in this country? I think it started off probably on the west coast of America when people start challenging their own pronouns and who am I? And, you know, they've got, I don't know, a million different genders.

47:26It's a freak show. And the teachers and headteachers that are allowing this stuff are freaks as well. They should be protecting our children. Don't confuse our children in schools. Children are children. When I was a kid, I wanted to be an airline pilot. I wanted to be a footballer, I wanted to be a cowboy, I wanted to be an Indian. You know, kids will get confused, kids will question, kids will tease each other. But you know what, it's part of growing up. When they get to an adult age, they'll figure it out for themselves what they want to be. Just leave them alone. If the only way for reform to gain would be to have some kind of coalition with Conservatives, would you be up for that?

48:03Well, we don't know that, do we? It's an impossible question to answer. We don't want any pact. We don't want any pre-election pact with the Conservatives. It's up to the electorate. The electorate are smart enough and nimble enough now to make their own mind up. And if they want to be ruled by a bunch of nutters, who's going to give our country away, lunatics that keep apologising for our history, our heritage, our past, our culture. If they want a police force that don't work, if they want armed forces that's completely woke, if they want public service to be a shambles, then vote for the Labour Party or vote for Greens.

48:38that's the choice they've got a simple choice the Conservative Party have had their chance I was part of it they didn't do anything they promised they've more or less bankrupted the country and then they've given it to the Labour Party gifted it to them and it's just more stupidity on steroids as far as I'm concerned and your opinion on how London is and the London Mayor well you know what my opinion of the London Mayor is I think I could work it out Yeah, that's why I'm in the Reform Party. You know, I made some comments last year about the state of our capital city, the Islamists controlling Parliament Square on a Wednesday night.

49:19I said that Mayor Kahn had lost control and given the city away. I was told by the Tory party I had to apologise to him. And I said, no, I'm not apologising to that man. No way, I'm right. And I am right. I've been proven right. and there's no way I went to be an independent MP and obviously I know Nigel and Richard and I'd always liked what Nigel's had to say. I liked the way he operates. Totally in line with him really. I'm a politician by accident. I never wanted to be an MP. I wasn't on my radar. I sort of just fell into it. And I thought to myself, if you know what, why am I here now? I am an MP.

50:04I don't know how long I've got left, probably six months to a year. I'm not apologising to Mayor Kahn. Not why I've got a breath in my body. And if I can make a difference, I'll make it with Reform UK with Nigel leading us. Plus, my mother told me I couldn't go back to the Tory party, which was always listen to your mum. And she said she wouldn't vote for me if I went back to the Tory party, which is quite powerful. So I thought, no. You know, I took a big gamble on myself going to reform. Why? Why is it a big gamble? Well, everybody said you lose your seat. You won't win your seat again. I was 12 to 1 at the bookies when the election was called.

50:39I thought, no, I'm going to win this seat. I know my constituents. I know what they like. I know what they think. And I did win, and my vote share went up. And every single other Red Wall seat, should I say, who I got elected with in 2016, they all lost their seats. There's only me. I remember being in the chamber when I first came to reform and I'm sat in the chamber and there's Jeremy Corbyn sat here at the side of me and George Galloway sat here and I'm sat in between them during a statement on Gaza you can imagine the the the crazy mental conversation when between these two lunatics and I'm having to listen to it I'm sat there and looking and there's my friends all on the Tory benches there's Ben Bradley's Marko Longhi there's Jonathan Gullis there's Jacob there's they're all there laughing at me like that and I'm thinking you know what they're not laughing now are they because every single one lost a seat and I'm still sat in the same seat but now I've got Nigel Richard Sarah Danny are you surprised at how fast and meteoric the rise of reform has been no I mean it's unprecedented isn't it not really I'm surprised at the membership numbers that already went up so so high but now I travel length and breadth of the country every week I speak at different associations I'm all over the place every weekend traveling hundreds and hundreds of miles and everywhere we go I get recognized and people pick their horns people come out and shake your hand and say we're depending on you how's that There's a huge amount of support out there for us.

52:27And the best ones are the black cabs around London. If you walk down, they all pip you. They all know who you are. It's great. And what happened with Rupert? Like, what really happened? I'm trying to remember now. Because there is an order to what happened with Rupert. There were some allegations made by Zia over some bullying, some threatening behaviour, which went to the police. He then went to the CPS. I don't think they had enough evidence to continue with it. And then obviously there was the allegations made from a member of staff as well. And Rupert wouldn't cooperate with the investigation.

53:08Now, you know, when you're in reform, everything you do has to be spot on. And we tried to be right about it, tried to do it properly. But obviously Rupert saw it differently. I've never publicly slagged Rupert off, always gone quite well with him. He's a highly intelligent man. But when you're in a team, especially a small team, and the spotlight's on you, you've got to be solid together. There can be no chinks in the armour. You've all got to sing from the same hymn sheet. You've all got to work together and do your best, because we're on a mission to save our country. And you have to accept that Nigel's our leader and we fall in line behind him.

53:48As simple as that. If you don't, you lose. Do you think there was like a leadership challenge? I think Rupert may have sort of seen himself to be a potential leader one day,

54:05but that's politics. You know, it's life, it's business. People always want to be the top dog. But there's one thing, I look back over political history about 30 years ago, There's one thing I admire Gordon Brown for. It's not his politics. It wasn't his management of the gold, was it? No, it wasn't his gold skills. He knew that Tony Blair was more electable than him. And usually politicians have got a huge ego. They'll even risk losing just in case they might win themselves. But he knew, and he was big enough to step aside and let Tony get the job. And that's probably the one thing I can admire him for.

54:46and in politics you have to you have to think to yourself am I in it for myself or for my country or for my area and the ones that want to be leader or push everybody to one side to get to leader are normally in it for themselves I just feel like it's just a bit of a shame because Rupert's got a lot of influence and he talks a lot of sense I think well I don't think he's got that much influence to be honest no? no he might have on Twitter but Twitter's you know I was never on Twitter before the last election um see you're walking around doing your videos now yeah I've done my videos Facebook's probably my best tour but don't get carried away on social media Twitter means nothing well I mean you're in the game of popularity aren't you it means nothing Facebook's the best one yeah I actually like prefer Facebook Facebook's I mean Facebook is the difference between Twitter and Facebook is on Facebook my mum my dad little old lady next door um our sons all my friends and family or on Facebook.

55:46None of them's on Twitter. None of them. They don't know how to use it. And it's a cesspit. It's just people attacking each other. Attacking pillars of the community like my good self. Making all sorts of outrageous allegations. I just go on Twitter, do my walk to work videos, roll a few grenades out for the lefties. Collect my 400 quid a month for my blue tick and then Bob's your uncle. did i think well let me ask you did labor screw working people the very people they said they were supposed to be they've always done it a bit labor make a living out of poor people they exist because of poor people and they keep telling these poor people that they are victims and they'll look after them and all they do is keep them poor you know giving people extra benefits is not getting them out of poverty.

56:40The way you get people out of poverty is through opportunity, it's through training, it's through education, it's through skilling up. And it's about saying to them, look, if you go to work, get this job, we'll support you with training and education. You know what, at the end of the rainbow, there's a house, there's a car, there's a family, there's a holiday abroad once a year. But that's beyond most people's wildest dreams now in some of the communities in this country. People just think, yeah, give me more benefits. and we're on third generation now that's never heard an alarm clock go off in the morning.

57:11And it's not their fault. It's the government's fault. It's the state's fault. How much worse would it have to get for you to leave? Leave where? The UK. I say to my children sometimes, go. Go to Dubai. Go to Australia. Go to Canada. Just go. But then you think to yourself, well, why should you give up? Why should you give up fighting for our country? you know things weren't perfect in the 70s and 80s when i was growing up no they weren't you know it weren't the good old days but it was a lot better you know you knew you'd got pretty much you could get a job when you left school um in my village i mean i said this at i can't remember anybody any man in my village being on the dole they were like if there was it was like you're like a leper you're an outcast people used to scoff and laugh and you'd like scurry by them in the street.

58:06But now it's whole streets that are not working. And the next street is working to pay for them. It's not fair. It's just not fair. Okay, let's finish this on something positive. This has all been positive.

58:23What's great about the UK and how we're going to make it better? Final call to arms. The future of the UK is in your hands. The great thing about the UK is wherever you go in the world, you can see something from this country. And that makes you, whether it's railway lines, whether it's engineering, you know, it's democracy, you can see something everywhere in the world from the UK, which when you look on the world map, you see how tiny we are. That's great. And we've got hard work and innovation in our DNA. We need to bring that back. And the way you bring it back is by getting people back to the bloody work and cutting the red tape, let businessmen flourish.

59:10Because at the end of the day, governments don't make money. Businesses make money. Entrepreneurs make money, risk takers. And you said you're most active on Facebook. Is your handle just Lee Anderson? What's your username so people can follow you? Well, I'll give you a clue. Lee Anderson MP. and I do my walk to work videos and sometimes I get, most days I probably get 300 ,000 or 400 ,000 views. People like them, don't they? People like them. People tune in to look at them and when you talk to people on a phone, on that phone, on Facebook in the morning, they think you're talking to them and you are and they like it and everywhere I go people say to me, I love your walk to work videos.

59:53Keep doing them. So I'll keep doing them and I can get more hits than Question Time on a Thursday night. You can. There you go. Lee, thanks for what you're doing and thanks for being on the show. You're welcome.

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1:00:58Thank you.