Richard Tice

Joining me now in the studio is the Reform UK leader Richard Tice who’s been listening to that. Richard, you heard the Mayor of London there referring quite calm words to the danger of politicians dividing. Did you feel some sense of unease when you listen to him a little bit?

I tell you what I was uneasy about, the fact that all he ever does is try to suppress debate, label and smear people he always says if anything goes against him it’s Islamophobic, it’s anti-muslim, it’s racist. Let me read out it’s really important because he clearly doesn’t understand what Islamophobia means right.

It was originally conceived 25 years ago by the Runnymede Trust. If you look at their definition of Islamophobia or if you look at the human rights council’s updated definition of Islamophobia recommended to the British government and the United Nations it reads as follows and it’s really important:

A fear Prejudice and hatred of Muslims or non-Muslim individuals that lead to provocation hostility and intolerance by means of threatening harassment, abuse, incitement and intimidation of Muslims both in the online and offline World.

It goes on frankly that is the definition that most people if they pay attention, focus on I’m afraid what the Mayor of London does. He’s trying to divide the fact; he’s constantly trying to move people away from the criticism of him that Lee Anderson was trying to make. By his own admission he was a bit clumsy with his words. What he was trying to do was to say that Sadiq Khan is in charge of security in London and he has fundamentally failed the Jewish Community as Robin Cox admits, Jews are terrified of going out at the weekends and many of them are starting to think about leaving London.

Is Sadiq Khan Controlled by Islamists?

Let me ask you very specifically, I don’t believe that you think that Sadiq Khan is controlled by Islamists do you? You don’t do you?

I don’t, but what I do think is that Sadiq Khan, I know factually he is in charge of security in London and at the weekends sadly and we saw it again this Saturday extreme activists, Islamist activists are acting in an unlawful way on the streets of London and he has failed and he has to be held to account for that.

You’ve got the aad situation where the police arrested someone with a sign saying Hamas are terrorists that’s literally English law. They are a prescribed terrorist organization and Sadiq Khan has utterly failed to condemn the portrayal of a genocidal antisemitic slogan on the House of Commons. He’s not condemned that and I think that’s appalling. I think that’s an absolute dereliction of his duty.

So, you now have your first MP, but this is somebody who’s referred to you as a pound shop Farage, who’s referred to your party as not a proper party and you have referred to him as 30p Lee, you’re not natural bed fellows are you?

We absolutely listen, a bit a banter and competitive sort of tension in politics is what goes with the territory and look, as I said this morning frankly you know, if we look after the pennies the pounds look after themselves and frankly there’s far too much wasteful government spending in the millions and tens of billions that frankly we need to get on top of. Look, Lee and I, we, absolutely see eye to eye he’s a man of principle and integrity who feels that basically the two main parties they have moved far away from his principles, what he stands for and look together we’re going to try and make a real difference.

He’s our champion of the red wall and I’ve said very clearly today that in this coming election and election afterwards we are looking to replace the Tory party in the red wall as the main alternative to Labour.

More MPs to Cross the Floor to Reform UK?

There are Rumours in Westminster tonight that eight or nine conservative MPs are quite close to coming over to you are they true?

Wouldn’t that be great?

No, I’m not asking whether it would be great, of course you think it would be great, I’m asking whether you think it would be true?

As you well know, you caught me out about a year ago talking about giving commentary on discussions with MPs or not. I’m not giving a running commentary on any individual discussions. MPs can know that any discussions they have me with me will be held in the highest degree of confidentiality let’s wait and see.

I’ve been looking at the polls as I always do and they’re all over the place, but you’re sort of anywhere between 11 and 12% at the moment. At what number do you start to take out a lot of conservative MPs because not necessarily directly but see those seats fall to Labour?

Well, our highest poll nationally is 14% by YouGov about 10 days ago and we were just 6% behind the Tories last Friday. It came out where we were just 5% behind the Tories, they dropped to 18%. By the summer I think there’s every prospect that we will be level pegging with the Tories and what happens then is frankly the Tories should recognize the game is up and we, I think more and more people, let’s remember lots of people still haven’t heard of Reform UK yet because it takes time to build a brand, but as that changes, we’re going up in the polls and frankly under Sunak the Tories are sinking in the polls.

The question that you get asked on every single occasion and again tonight is Nigel Farage, is he coming back to frontline politics?

Well, I hope that he’ll be feel able to get stuck in and give as much contribution as he can, because he’s the most experienced most well-known politician in the country. The more help Nigel can give the better, the higher we go in the polls.

All right Richard Tice, thank you very much indeed for joining us.