'Lee Anderson was the red wall personified' claims Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg

It was people who supported Brexit, wanted immigration brought down and favoured low taxation.

They supported the individual; they wanted a society that was built from the bottom up and they came together and voted in their swathes across the country for Boris Johnson, giving him the biggest majority Conservatives had since the election victory in 1987.

And Lee was at the heart of that. A former miner representing a mining constituency. And what was so interesting about the election result, lost in many ways in the commentary on the red wall, was that this was a victory across the country.

Rarely had it been the case that England and Wales had been more united in wanting a Conservative government. Scotland with the SNP being different and Northern Ireland having its own political ecosystem.

It was an amazing achievement which, as I say, Lee was such an important symbol of.

And now he’s gone. He’s left to go to Reform. This matters because divided wings of politics lose. Bear in mind in 1983 and 1987 Margaret Thatcher won bigger majorities than 1979 on a lower share of the vote.

Why was that? It was because the Labour Party had split. And the risk for those of us on the right, is that in the next election, what we all want to achieve will be made less likely because we will divide each other's vote, and therefore Labour and the Lib Dems will pick up seats.

This is harmful not just for those of us in the Conservative Party, but also for people in Reform, because there is so much common ground between people like Lee and me, Nigel Farage and me and even Richard Tice and many people who are in the Conservative Party.

When I speak to Conservative associations the policies that they want are identical to those that Lee Anderson is advocating.

Why are they not getting through Parliament then? What is the block, the obstacle, the sticking point, that is preventing conservative policies coming through? Well, there are problems.

There are some people in the Conservative Party who attach more importance to European courts and foreign judgments and who are basically still Europhiles and they have certainly had an influence.

There's the House of Lords which would remain there even with a Reform government. And there are some international agreements that we need to get out of.

But fundamentally, the Conservative Party needs to be adopting popular conservative policies and reuniting the right.

“What do I mean by that? Well, bringing back those people who are thinking of staying at home, those people who are thinking of voting for Reform into the electoral coalition that Boris Johnson brought together.

And that means showing that we can deal with immigration, showing that we're serious about reducing the size of the state and not just cutting individual taxes but cutting taxation.

We need to show that we want to reap the fruits of Brexit so that we get the benefits that by failing to pass the Retained EU Law bill in full, we are not getting in the way that we should.

And that we can control our borders securely, not just in terms of migration, but the we're forthright and safe in defence.

It’s what Conservatives believe in, but we're not putting it forward strongly enough. And therefore, we are finding that people like Lee are making decisions that actually make all of this harder.

Because we know Reform won't win the election, but they can stop, they can make it harder for the Conservatives. And this means that what all of us want becomes less likely.

That's why I think Lee made a mistake in going. I think he should have stayed within the Conservative Party, to bolster the forces arguing for what he believes in.

But I also think the Conservative party made a mistake in taking the whip away from him. You don’t take away the whip for one slip of the tongue: a clumsy phrase, as Lee himself called it, from somebody who's one of your most powerful and forthright advocates.