Lee Anderson 'off to the bookies' after seeing odds against Tories for Ashfield seat

Reform UK candidate Lee Anderson has said he's "off to the bookies" after seeing his odds to win Ashfield at the General Election in July.

The former Tory Party Vice-Chairman posted on social media platform X, sharing odds from an unknown bookmaker that had him 7/2 to take the Nottinghamshire seat.

Labour were listed as favourites at 4/7 on to reclaim the constituency, while the Tories were a distant fourth and outsiders at 16/1.

Gloating at his far shorter odds than his old party, ex-miner Mr Anderson said: "Who said a vote for @reformparty_uk is a vote for Labour?

"Well look again. It's quite clear that here in the Red Wall seat of Ashfield a vote for the Conservatives is a vote for Labour.

"Right I'm off to the bookies to have some of that 7/2."

It appears that the 57-year-old was either sharing the odds from bookmakers Coral or Ladbrokes, as the odds he listed correspond with what the bookies were offering at the time of writing.

However, other bookmakers have him at the slightly longer odds of 15/4, while Bet365 has him at a distant 5/1.

Reform UK will be hopeful that they have a chance of turning Ashfield turquoise come polling day.

The party, which is sitting third or fourth in the polls depending on which pollsters you trust, is expected to get around 10 per cent of the vote, but spread thinly across the country - making it harder to get seats in the House of Commons.

The Liberal Democrats in comparison are likely to get a similar percentage of the vote, but in more concentrated areas, meaning Ed Davey's party are more likely to secure a higher number of seats.

Lee Anderson himself said prior to defecting to Reform UK that voting for Richard Tice's party would pave the way for Keir Starmer to take the keys to Number 10.

In January he told GB News that Reform posed a "bigger threat to the country" than Labour. He said: “They are a threat, a bigger threat to the country at the moment I think than the Labour Party, because if Reform do pick off a lot of us Conservative MPs at the next election, then what's going to happen is we're going to end up with a Labour government, and a Labour government is the last thing I want.

“I love my country. I love my country to bits - I don't want to see a Labour government and I'm sure Nigel in his heart of hearts loves this country, in fact I know he does.

“But he runs the risk of losing a lot of Tory seats, seats like mine, to put some Labour remainers, remoaners, back in power. You know what that means? That means that's a backdoor entrance back into the European Union.”