‘Are you going to shut up or just go out?’
Reform members were heard chanting for Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, to be released from prison during a regional party conference in Leicester last Friday.
While discussing grooming gang scandals in areas like Rotherham, some audience members began chanting pro-Tommy Robinson messages.
During Lee Anderson MP’s speech, one member of the crowd shouted “Listen to Tommy Robinson”.
When a second crowd member shouted a pro-Tommy Robinson chant, Anderson told the man “to shut up or get out”.
He said: “Are you going to shut up or just get out? Do you want to come up here and speak? Do you want to come up?”.
This comes after Elon Musk published a pinned post on X which said: “Free Tommy Robinson” and claimed he was sent to prison for exposing truth about grooming gangs.
Robinson was instead jailed for contempt of court after repeating false allegations about a young Syrian refugee.
By telling members of the crowd shouting messages in support of Tommy Robinson to “shut up”, Anderson again signalled that Reform UK is trying to distance itself from the far-right figurehead, who is currently serving an 18-month prison sentence.
In an interview on LBC yesterday, Reform MP Richard Tice said of Robinson: “He’s in jail, he’s nothing to do with us and never will be.”
He added: “It is as clear and as simple as that, we’re a serious political party”.
Anderson was the first big speaker at Reform UK’s East Midlands party conference on Friday.
In his speech, the Ashfield MP said: “We’re not far-right protestors, we’re just decent, hard-working Brits that want to leave our country in a better state than when we arrived”.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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