Lee Anderson’s back on his favourite subject: food and drink as political statement.
The Reform MP for Ashfield, who’s previously made content out of eating bacon sandwiches, posted a video this week holding a pint of Guinness. “Been a long day,” he wrote. “So trying this out. Let’s see who this offends. Cheers.”
Who, exactly, was meant to be offended isn’t clear. Guinness is one of the most recognisable beers in Britain and Ireland. Drinking a pint in a pub isn’t really an act most people would call politically daring.
The format’s familiar by now: take something completely ordinary, imply some unnamed group disapproves of it, invite followers to celebrate the imagined rebellion together. No actual example of anyone objecting to Guinness. No explanation of why it would cause offence. Didn’t stop the post picking up thousands of likes.
Nobody was actually offended
Curtis Daly, posting as @CurtisDaly_, went straight for it: “‘Let’s see who this offends’. No-one, absolutely no-one.” The Purple Pimpernel: “Guzzling pints and eating sannies, the most childish politician in Britain.” @Wrevolution asked: “This need to desperately offend people is fucking weird Lee, I’d seek help. Who the hell is offended by Guinness?”
Reform UK Exposed had its own line: “The only thing offensive about this Lee is that splitting the G left us in 2024,” referencing the drinking challenge where you try to finish your first sip with the Guinness level lined up exactly with the letter G on the glass.
Plenty of mockery. No sign of the outrage Anderson seemed to be fishing for.
Tony French landed the best line by far
@French___Tone asked: “Isn’t Guinness everything you hate @LeeAndersonMP_? It’s foreign and you have to let it settle?”
Hard to top that. Guinness comes from St James’s Gate in Dublin, where Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000-year brewery lease in 1759, about as Irish as a drink gets. And a properly poured Guinness genuinely is left to settle before it’s topped up, the second half of the joke practically writes itself. An Irish import, described using exactly the language Anderson usually reaches for around immigration. The joke turned his own bit against him cleanly.
The pattern behind the pint
Politicians using food and drink for image isn’t new, pub visits and cups of tea are standard campaign trail stuff because they put politicians somewhere familiar. Anderson’s version does something slightly different. The pint isn’t just a pint. It becomes proof he’s doing something supposedly forbidden by people who never get named and whose objections never actually get produced.
Same trick’s been used with bacon sandwiches, flags, traditional meals, Christmas. Take something ordinary, frame it as under threat, pose as its defender without ever establishing anyone was attacking it in the first place. It works as content precisely because it doesn’t require disagreement, supporters get to celebrate a victory that never needed winning, critics get to point out nobody cared, and either way the post gets engagement.
This one was an especially clean example because Anderson didn’t name a single policy, campaign or person who’d objected to the drink. Just “let’s see who this offends,” then he waited.
What showed up wasn’t outrage at the pint. It was people laughing at the idea that drinking it made him rebellious.
Anderson’s whole social media approach
Anderson has represented Ashfield since 2019, now for Reform after previously sitting as a Conservative. The dumb, food-and-pub-heavy social media style has become a genuine part of his ‘political identity’, short clips that don’t need context, viewers don’t have to follow a parliamentary debate or read a policy paper, just pick a side between Anderson and whichever vaguely defined group might object to his lunch that day.
The problem shows up when the imagined opponent doesn’t actually exist. Nobody stopped Anderson buying his Guinness. Nobody tried to rename it, remove it, or cancel it. It’s just 30p looking to seem like a rebel, when oion reality, he looks like a fool.
Anderson wanted to find out who his drink would offend. He found out who had the better joke instead.
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