I STARTED working down the pit as a teenager just a year after the miners’ strike of the Eighties, where my dad and the rest of the miners in my family took part in the year-long action.
It was a bitter dispute that divided communities as they became pawns in a war played out by Arthur Scargill and Margaret Thatcher.
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During my first week underground, I expected some of the miners to be hostile towards me as I was the son of a striking miner in a pit where more than 90 per cent of the men worked.
It soon became apparent to me that this was not the case.
Yes, there was still some bitterness, but those I worked with were decent, hard-working men who made me feel part of the mining family.
Fiercely patriotic
Many of them had been involved in the strikes of the Seventies, one of which brought down the Edward Heath government of the day.
As all my new workmates were union members, I thought they would all be ardent Labour-voting trade unionists who would love to bring down a Tory government every time they came to power.
But I was wrong. They weren’t that political.
The men I worked with were just decent, hard-working blokes who did an incredibly dangerous job in the harshest conditions to put food on the table and pay the rent.
These men were fiercely patriotic, loved Queen and country, they worked weekends so they could afford a family holiday once a year and they wanted a brighter future for their children — a future that didn’t involve their sons or daughters working down the pit or in a factory.
If the next generation does better in life than their parents, then that is progress — the sort of progress the working classes have always aspired to.
The irony is that these are conservative values, yet it was in our DNA to always vote against the Conservative Party as we were Labour-supporting trade unionists.
Fast forward 40 years and I found myself as a Reform UK MP who still has a soft spot for the trade union movement and its members as I genuinely believe that the British worker is still the best in the world, and we must do everything we can to protect them.
For me, the union members have never been the problem — it’s the union leaders who have taken advantage of their positions to push their own political agendas.
These leaders sometimes treat their members as useful idiots.
I saw it first-hand during the miners’ strike where, at Shirebrook Colliery, just down the road from me, the men voted not to strike — but their leaders called them all out on strike.
They were bullied into strike action and violent scenes followed.
It divided a whole community and set family against family, while the union bosses sat back gloating at their divisive achievements.
I genuinely believe that the British worker is still the best in the world
Lee Anderson
In 2025, there are many similarities, except this time union leaders are setting their sights on Reform UK as we surge in the polls.
We are no threat at all to working people in the UK.
We are a party of aspiration and hard work. We want people to succeed through hard work, have strong family values and know that there will be opportunities for their children to succeed, and we want people to be proud of our history, heritage and culture.
Some of the union leaders will point to the fact that we voted against the Employment Rights Bill.
Yes, we did, and it’s not because we are against workers’ rights. We are against what was in the bill.
It was a bill that would cost jobs and deter business owners from expanding.
People need jobs, not an ideology that will cost jobs.
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It comes as no surprise to me that Reform UK stormed the recent local elections, especially in places like Ashfield, the capital of common sense.
The ex-mining families turned out in their droves to vote for us at the General Election and again at last week’s local elections.
Even though many of them will or have been Labour- voting union members, they have decided they will not be used as useful idiots any more.
Why should the Labour Party be seen as the party of the workers?
Reform UK will take that off them next.
My dad is 80 years old and was a fierce trade unionist who took part in three miners’ strikes in the 1970s and 1980s.
He voted Labour all his life until his mid-seventies, when he voted for me as a Tory candidate and then, just like many of his old pit mates, voted Reform UK last July.
Union leaders need to wake up and ask themselves: “Why?”
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