Lee Anderson, Reform UK’s first MP, made a splash this week in Parliament, stumping the head of Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Authority by merely asking how exactly the system she leads is “institutionally racist”.
Councillor Rebecca Knox, the chairwoman of the Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Authority, was caught flatfooted this week when questioned by Reform’s Lee Anderson during a session of the House of Common’s Home Affairs committee on Wednesday.
Responding to assertions that the authority was “institutionally racist”, which Knox said she agreed with, Anderson asked: “Could you please tell me, councillor, what unfair advantages white people have in your force?
“I would hope none… not advantages. Did I hear you correctly?” replied Councillor Knox.
“So then how can you be institutionally racist?” Anderson countered.
“Um… I, uh, sorry, I might have to get back to you,” she said.
Councillor Knox, a member of the neo-liberal Conservative Party, later claimed that female and minority members of the service previously had a lack of “safe spaces” to air their grievances, but that the authority has been seeking to rectify the situation.
Anderson, who broke ranks with the governing Conservative Party earlier this month and defected to the Nigel Farage-founded Reform UK party (formerly Brexit Party), commented following the exchange that he believed that some people in power believe that it is “fashionable” to say that institutions are racist.
Speaking to GB News on Wednesday evening, Anderson said of Knox: “I think this is a case of a boss just ticking a box.”
“She is admitting they’re racist, when it probably isn’t, just to keep a job, it’s pathetic… It’s virtue signalling at the highest level.”
“The thing is, she is the boss. She’s admitted they’re institutionally racist then couldn’t provide any evidence to back it up.”
A former coal miner, Anderson was embroiled in a controversy last month in which he was accused of racism and “Islamophobia” for suggesting that far-left London Mayor Sadiq Khan was “controlled” by radical Islamist groups, in light of the perceived lax policing during months of anti-Israel protests in the British capital.
For this, Anderson was suspended from the Conservative Party in the Parliament, a move which ultimately resulted in him leaving the party and joining Reform UK as its first MP.
Brexit boss Nigel Farage, who still serves in a ceremonial role as the honorary president of Reform UK, said that with Anderson, the populist party will seek to become the main challenger to the Labour Party in the ‘Red Wall’ seats in the Midlands and north of the country. Farage also commented that he believed the supposed outrage over Anderson’s comments was merely a function of “London, privately educated, middle-class snobbery.”
Reform is just points away in the latest polls from catching up with the Conservatives, a damning indictment of just how far the Tories have fallen on the back of over a decade of broken promises as much as it is a reflection of Reform’s growth.
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