Far from reflecting ‘the real world’, the Anderson extended universe is as full of artifice as anything else in politics, says Alys Denby
Lee Anderson’s show on GB News is called The Real World, yet behind the scenes it’s anything but. The show is broadcast on a Friday evening and set up to give viewers the impression that the MP for Ashfield is setting the world to rights over pints in his local. In fact, it is filmed on a Wednesday morning, so guests – among whose number I have the dubious honour to be counted – are offered drinks at 10am (although to be fair, Anderson only pretends to sip his).
Far from reflecting ‘the real world’, the Anderson extended universe is as full of artifice as anything else in politics. This is what enables the former Conservative deputy chairman to join a party whose leader he recently described as “Reform’s answer to Diane Abbott”. This is how he can, with a straight face, refuse to call a by-election despite having previously voted for a bill which would require MPs who switch parties to do so. And this is how he can frame his new allegiance as a defection – when in fact he had been kicked out of the Conservative party for claiming that Islamists have “got control of London”.
Pure fantasy though such comments are, they do point to a worrying trend: the deepening divide between London and the rest of the country. When former prime minister Benjamin Disraeli described “two nations between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy”, he was talking about the rich and the poor. Today, there is London and London as other parts of the country may imagine it – a place which is in hock to both a wealthy Westminster elite who are only out for themselves and Muslim extremists, never mind that both can’t be true at the same time.
The Conservatives have done as much as anyone to foment this atmosphere of envy and fear surrounding the capital. Brexit was, of course, unpopular with many Londoners who voted 60 per cent Remain, almost the exact mirror to Anderson’s region – the East Midlands – which voted 59 per cent Leave. But there was a way to leave the EU without completely alienating metropolitan values. There was a version of Brexit, promoted by the likes of Lord Hannan, that embraced free trade, multiculturalism and global competitiveness.
Instead, at the 2019 election, the Conservatives pursued Labour voters with promises of state handouts and fewer immigrants. Meanwhile, Londoners were abandoned in favour of ‘levelling up’, a doctrine devoted to moving growth away from the capital and somehow turning deprived coastal towns into Renaissance Florence. That that campaign was led by Boris Johnson, a former mayor of London, proves what a looking glass world it was.
The shortcomings of that strategy are now becoming clear. Some voters who, like Anderson, switched from Labour at the last election are now finding that the Tories don’t quite represent them either. Even a party that is prepared to ignore international law in order to deport a handful of migrants to Rwanda is not tough enough on immigration for them.
Easy at it is for us urbanites to caricature such people as provincial racists, that isn’t the case. Like anyone, what most non-Londoners really care about is paying their bills, good schools for their children and being able to see a doctor when they are sick. Their disaffection with conventional politicians is a result of economic mismanagement which has left them poorer and angrier. But guess what, no country can afford to fund public services if it overlooks, and even views with suspicion, a city that produces almost a quarter of UK GDP and is home to the services industry, which represents 56 per cent of our exports.
In the upcoming election, the Tories will find that London and other constituencies which vote like it are as much the ‘real world’ as the rest of the country. And having diverged from their better instincts to please people in places like Ashfield, they will be rewarded by losing votes – and MPs – to Reform, a party that believes the Conservatives should be “smashed and destroyed”. Some readers may drink to that – it’s a little early for me.
Alys Denby is opinion and features editor of City A.M.