Tice defends Farage’s parliament attendance record as Reform party conference begins – UK politics live
Richard Tice has been out beating the drum for Reform UK in a series of media appearances ahead of their conference later today. He defended leader Nigel Farage’s record of appearances in parliament, claiming that “no one works harder than Nigel Farage.”
Farage has spoken seven times in parliament since he was elected.
Speaking to PA Media, Reform UK’s deputy chair said:
As leader, you’ve got a huge job, because you’re campaigning everywhere. You’re sorting out the professionalisation with the chairman and so we’re sharing and sharing alike and that’s an important part of it. You can’t be everywhere all the time. It’s really difficult. But let me tell you, no one works harder than Nigel Farage.
Tice also defended Farage’s interest in campaigning abroad during the US election, telling PA Media:
As a leader of a party that is now becoming mainstream, international affairs, our relationship with our most important, strategic international partner – the US – is very important and the world will be a safer place if Donald Trump wins the presidential election. Nigel’s strong relationship with Donald Trump is actually to the benefit of this country and it’s quite right that he cements and strengthens that.
In a busy morning for him, Tice has also appeared on GB News, where he claimed that Reform UK, which was third in the July general election on vote share, he said that his party was the true opposition to the newly elected Labour government. He told viewers:
No one’s got more visibility, frankly, than Nigel on social media. I’m getting millions of views on mine. The other three MPs, likewise. We’re out there. We’re making a noise. Frankly, we are the real opposition. The Tories have vacated the premises, we hardly ever see them in the House of Commons.
I’ve spoken 16 times, I’ve challenged the zealot-in-chief, Ed Miliband. I’ve challenged the home secretary. I’ve challenged the health secretary on the failings of the NHS. So look, we’re holding them to account. That’s what people expect of opposition parties.
Yesterday Farage was embroiled in a row after he claimed he received official parliamentary advice against holding in-person surgeries for his constituents in Clacton – then his claim was immediately called into question by parliamentary insiders.
Members of the largest trade union in the NHS in Scotland have voted in favour of a 5.5% rise offered by the Scottish government.
Unison said 89% of balloted members voted for the deal, but warned the government against “complacency”, saying ministers need to be “far better at dealing with the annual pay round”.
PA Media reports Unison Scotland lead organiser for health, Matt McLaughlin, said: “There’s considerable anger that it’s taken 200 days to get an offer on the table.”
Green Party of England and Wales MP Ellie Chowns has been promoting on social media her work on attempting to clear up pollution from rivers the originates from industrial poultry farming.
In a post, Chowns, who was elected to represent North Herefordshire in July, said:
We’re calling on the govt to clean up rivers affected by industrial poultry production. Intensive farming has increased the levels of phosphates finding their way in to our rivers: devastating wildlife and plants. Companies mustn’t profit from pollution.
Chowns has agreed to present to parliament a 30,000-strong petition on cleaning up the River Wye and other rivers organised by the charity Soil Association, and has tabled a parliamentary question on the issue.
Price comparison websites and energy brokers will be regulated in a bid to end their alleged “license to scam”, the energy consumers minister has said.
Miatta Fahnbulleh, MP for Peckham, said a new framework to regulate third-party intermediaries could end hidden fees “and other unethical tactics”.
Energy watchdog Ofgem published a report earlier this year which found examples of business stakeholders’ “mis-selling concerns”, for example, being “locked into a contract at higher prices than they needed to be for multiple years, which can severely impact business viability”.
Fahnbulleh said:
We will bring these intermediaries under control and put an end to hidden fees and other unethical tactics. A new regulatory framework, coupled with clear rules and standards, will restore trust and protect consumers while helping to build an energy market fit for the future – one where these organisations help people save money through fairer practices and show them the best ways to reduce their carbon footprint.
The government is launching a consultation which ends in mid-November.
There is some new Marina Hyde for your enjoyment …
Away from Reform’s conference, Labour has blamed a “dire economic inheritance from the previous government” on a jump in government borrowing last month.
Official figures today show public sector debt hit 100% of gross domestic product in August for the first time since the early 1960s.
Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury James Murray said the borrowing figures were “far worse than expected”, having come in higher than forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility.
The MP said the Treasury was facing a black hole in public finances that it was “going to have to address in the Budget” with “difficult decisions around taxation, welfare and spending” to come.
James McMurdock, MP for South Basildon and East Thurrock, has spoken at the Reform UK conference. He had only paid to join Reform UK two months before the election. He got a loud cheer in the hall after demanding that foreign-born prisoners in prisons in England and Wales be deported.
Claiming “There are people in this very room who will be Reform MPs alongside me in 2029,” there were also loud cheers when he said “The momentum is absolutely on our side. Nigel, or as I should call him the Honourable Member for Clacton, and Richard, the Honourable Member for Boston and Skegness, are the people to lead us into Downing Street. We will then be ready to welcome Nigel Farage, not just as a member of parliament, but as the prime minister.”
Ann Widdecombe is speaking next, followed by television personality Ant Middleton, and then lunch is scheduled between 1pm and 3pm. I’ll bring you key lines later when Reform UK’s other MPs are speaking.
Incidentally I’ve been emailed by someone called David and gently chided that he believes technically the National Exhibition Centre where the event is being held isn’t actually in Birmingham, it is in fact claimed by Solihull. This appears to have opened an entire can of worms, as Marston Green also has a claim.
Dr David Bull, Reform UK’s co-deputy leader, has opened their conference in Birmingham. He said the party was new and had achieved an incredible result in the general election by obtaining over 4m votes. There were huge cheers when he claimed they were the fastest growing party in the history of British politics, and claimed Reform UK has nearly 80,000 “members”, which is close, he said, to the number that the Conservatives have.
There were boos from the audience for the electoral system, as he said that Liberal Democrats had a much higher number of MPs despite having fewer votes. He also said that the mainstream British political parties had “betrayed the British people” in the way they had implemented leaving the European Union. Bull was briefly an MEP for the Brexit party.
PA Media reports that leader Nigel Farage received a standing ovation when he entered the hall.
There are about 5,000 people watching the start of the Reform UK conference in Birmingham via their YouTube channel. James McMurdock MP and Ann Widdecombe are the first up to speak. You can watch it here if you would like …
As incredible as it may seem, there are still six weeks left of the Conservative party leadership contest. Robert Jenrick, Kemi Badenoch, James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat remain in contention to replace Rishi Sunak as the official leader of the opposition.
In campaigning today Cleverly has been promoting what he claims is his record of delivery, Tugendhat has been congratulating some newly elected Conservative councillors, declaring that “it’s clear people are already rejecting Labour leadership”, and Badenoch has been promoting her recent interview with GB News’ Christopher Hope with a knowing wink emoji about her comments that working at McDonald’s making her working class which caused an online stir earlier this week.
Jenrick, meanwhile, has written for the Daily Mail. In what the paper describes as a “hard-hitting article”, it says he has claimed “mass immigration and woke culture have put England’s national identity at risk.”
Jonathan Portes, professor of economics at King’s College London has described it on social media as “unashamed ethnonationalism/racism from Jenrick”
Here are some of pictures from the Reform UK conference which is starting today in Birmingham.
Heathrow Express staff are to launch a 48-hour strike on Monday in a dispute over pay. The Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) said its members overwhelming rejected a 3.5% pay offer.
PA Media reports general secretary Mick Lynch said “They are determined to secure fair pay and better working conditions. [Management must] return to the table with a meaningful offer.”
A Heathrow Express spokesperson said “There will be no disruption to Heathrow Express services as a result of this action.”
My colleagues Ben Quinn and Peter Walker are both in Birmingham for the Reform UK conference which is gradually wending its way to starting.
It is believed that about 4,000 people have paid to attend, with ticket prices ranging from £20 for young members, up to £1,025 if you wanted the platinum ticket that includes “Saturday morning champagne breakfast with Reform leadership and a photograph with Nigel Farage.”
Mel Stride, who has exited the Conservative leadership contest, but remains shadow secretary of state for work and pensions, has attacked Labour again over its decision to means-test winter fuel payments.
Stride posted to social media to say:
Labour ministers have now been forced to admit that 86% of pensioners in absolute poverty will lose their winter fuel payment this winter. It should not take me asking an official question, which they are required to answer, to get this information. No wonder they’ve been so reluctant to answer basic questions about the impact. They want the public to think those who really need support will continue to receive it. They knew the reality all along – but chose not to reveal it before parliament debated the issue.
Stride linked to an answer earlier this week from Labour’s Emma Reynolds, where she said “For the latest year 2022/23, 1.4 million pensioners were in absolute poverty AHC in the UK. Of these, 200,000 pensioners were in receipt of Pension Credit, approximately 14%.”
In his comments Stride did not address the issue of why the previous Conservative administration had presided over 1.4 million pensions being in “absolute poverty” during that period.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has announced that people in England and Wales who do not receive pension credit or certain other means-tested benefits will no longer receive winter fuel payments. 53 Labour MPs did not vote with the government on the winter fuel payments decision when it was voted on it parliament.
Deputy chair Richard Tice has also attacked the government over this today, during his media appearances ahead of the Reform UK conference in Birmingham, which starts around noon-ish. He told viewers of GB News earlier:
I’ve got over 22,200 pensioners losing that winter fuel allowance, furious. I had a pensioner in Boston just two weeks ago literally shake my hand and burst into tears of fear as to whether or not she would see the end of winter because she was worried about being so cold. No, I think this Labour government has got no idea how to create growth, no idea actually, how to protect pensioners. They seem to view pensioners as people that they can dismiss.
There has been a couple of interesting bits of polling out this morning, neither of which make great reading for Labour ahead of their first annual conference while being in power for more than a decade.
Savanta have found that half of the UK public say that it will be unacceptable for Labour to continue blaming the Conservatives after a year in government, fewer than one in seven UK adults think there will be any noticeable improvement to life in the UK in that time, and that a third of the public say that Labour in government has been too negative about the challenges facing the UK.
Ipsos, meanwhile, saytheir latest survey shows half of Britons say that they are disappointed with what Labour have done in government so far, including a quarter of those who voted for the party in July. And Britons are slightly more likely to think the Labour government will change Britain for the worse (36%) than the better (31%). Keir Starmer’s personal approval rating has declined significantly.
I mentioned that the main event “on diary” today is the Reform UK conference in Birmingham. According to the agenda, today delegates will be hearing from …
12.15 James McMurdock MP (South Basildon and East Thurrock)
12.30 Ann Widdecombe
15.00 Rupert Lowe MP (Great Yarmouth)
15.15 Lee Anderson MP (Ashfield, Reform UK chief whip)
15.30 Richard Tice MP (Boston and Skegness, Reform UK deputy chair)
15.45 Zia Yusuf (Reform UK chair)
16.00 Nigel Farage MP (Clacton, Reform UK leader)
TV personality Ant Middleton from SAS: Who Dares Wins is also speaking. Reform UK took 14.3% of the vote in July’s general election, and it is their first conference since having MPs elected – Anderson was elected in the previous parliament as a Conservative.
Lowe, Anderson and Tice have been extremely active in the media this morning. My colleagues Peter Walker and Ben Quinn published this interview with Tice earlier.
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