There’s a pretty obvious reason why Reform’s Lee Anderson has been weirdly quiet about the Afghan refugee story dominating the news this week.
On Tuesday, it was revealed that thousands of Afghans have been relocated to the UK under a secret government scheme following a data leak.
The personal information of some 18,700 Afghans looking to relocate to the UK following the Taliban takeover of their country was released in error by a defence official in 2022.
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The previous government learned of the date breach when some of the details appeared on Facebook, and a secret resettlement scheme was set up in April 2024 to relocate those on the list.
Around 4,500 Afghans have arrived in the UK under the scheme so far.
The Tory government took out a high court superinjunction to prevent the leak becoming public knowledge. The story only emerged this week after judge Mr Justice Chamberlain decided it was time to end the superinjunction.
The news has been pounced upon by Reform, who have attacked the Tories for this happening on their watch.
But one person who hasn’t been particularly vocal is Lee Anderson. The likely reason for this? Well, he was deputy chairman of the Conservative Party while the whole thing unfolded.
In a post on X, Zia Yusuf highlighted who was in government at the time, taking aim at then home secretary Suella Braverman and then immigration minister Robert Jenrick. He conveniently left Anderson off his list though, and it wasn’t long before some reminded him of his colleague’s employment history,
Of course, this is before we even get onto the fact that Andrea Jenkyns and Reform’s newest defector Josh Berry were both Tory MPs over the same period as well.