Tories suspend the wife of Lee Anderson after photo appears to show her campaigning for Reform UK with her husband

• Sinead Anderson is a senior member of Nottinghamshire County Council

The Conservative party have suspended the wife of Lee Anderson after a photo appeared reportedly showing the councillor campaigning for Reform UK.

The Tories said they would launch an investigation after the Ashfield MP posted the picture on X, formerly Twitter, last Saturday.

The photo appears to show Sinead Anderson among a group of people canvassing for Reform UK in Selston alongside her husband.

A Tory spokeswoman said: ‘Mrs Anderson has been suspended pending investigation. The Conservative Party has a robust complaints process in place.

‘This process is rightly a confidential one, so that complainants can come forward in confidence.’

The Conservative party have suspended the wife of Lee Anderson, circled, after she appeared in a Reform UK campaign photo alongside her husband

The Tories said they would launch an investigation after the councillor’s husband posted this picture on X

Sinead Anderson, pictured left, is a senior member of Nottinghamshire County Council

When approached for comment by the Sunday Mirror, which broke the story, Mr Anderson reportedly asked: ‘How do you know it’s her?’.

If Ms Anderson, who is a senior member of Nottinghamshire County Council, is found to have campaigned for a rival party, it would be a breach of party rules.

READ MORE: ’30p’ Lee Anderson joins Nigel Farage’s outfit after refusing to apologise for saying London mayor Sadiq Khan was ‘controlled by Islamists’

Ms Anderson has been contacted for comment.

This comes after her husband was unveiled as Reform UK’s MP as the controversial politician joined his third party.

The blunt-talking former coal miner started his political career as a Labour councillor, before defecting to the Conservatives and being elected as MP for Ashfield in Nottinghamshire in 2019.

In the past five years he has spent a lot of time in the spotlight after wading in to debates on poverty and immigration, and the support for Black Lives Matter shown by England football stars.

It led to him being dubbed ’30p Lee’ after he said people using food banks could make a meal for that amount and were just bad at budgeting.

But in the end he went too far in the eyes of Tory HQ after he used his £100,000-a-year side hustle as a GB News presenter to accuse London mayor Sadiq Khan of handing the capital over to Islamists.

He was suspended by the Tories last month, and was earlier this week unveiled by Reform at a central London press conference.

The blunt-talking former coal miner pictured when he was first unveiled as a Reform UK MP

The former Tory deputy chairman, who is now Reform’s only MP following his defection from the Conservatives after losing the party whip, also announced a non-aggression pact with a number of former party colleagues.

He said he would avoid campaigning in certain Tory constituencies due to friendships with Ben Bradley (Mansfield), Brendan Clarke-Smith (Bassetlaw), Marco Longhi (Dudley North) and Nick Fletcher (Don Valley).

The move led to calls for Rishi Sunak to suspend Mr Fletcher from the party after the MP took to social media to endorse Mr Anderson as Ashfield’s ‘greatest champion’, adding he needs to be back in Westminster after the election.

It is understood that Mr Fletcher was spoken to by the Government’s chief whip Simon Hart over the post on X.

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