Richard Tice - MP for Boston and Skegness / Business, Trade and Energy Spokesperson | Reform Watch
Profile and accountability tracker for Richard Tice, MP for Boston and Skegness / Business, Trade and Energy Spokesperson. Reform UK.
Role: MP for Boston and Skegness / Business, Trade and Energy Spokesperson
Party: Reform UK
Recorded incidents (showing 21-30 of 30)
Richard Tice refuses to apologise for calling Nigel Farage's classmates 'liars'
Category: inflammatory language
On 10 December 2025 Richard Tice, deputy leader of Reform UK, told LBC's Tonight with Andrew Marr that it was "nonsense" he had made Nigel Farage's life harder by calling Farage's former classmates "liars" after historical allegations of racist behaviour. He said he did not regret the comments, refused to apologise when asked, and described the accusations as "made-up twaddle". The remarks were made during a live broadcast interview. The claims relate to allegations by more than 20 people that Farage engaged in racist or antisemitic behaviour at Dulwich College decades earlier, including Peter Ettedgui's claim that Farage told him "Hitler was right." Tice said Farage later produced counter-evidence, reiterated on BBC Radio 4 that telling a Jewish classmate "Hitler was right" would be racial abuse but called the specific allegations fabricated, and criticised a previous Emma Barnett interview; no apology from Tice or party disciplinary action has been reported.
Tice called allegations about Farage's schooldays 'made-up twaddle' on Radio 4
Category: inappropriate behaviour
Location: BBC Radio 4, London
On 4 December 2025 Richard Tice, deputy leader of Reform UK, appeared on BBC Radio 4's Today programme and dismissed allegations that Nigel Farage had made racist and antisemitic remarks as a pupil at Dulwich College as "made-up twaddle". The allegations came from more than two dozen of Farage's school contemporaries, first reported by the Guardian, and included a claim that Farage told a Jewish classmate "Hitler was right". Asked whether such a remark would amount to racial abuse, Tice said it would. He nevertheless characterised the accounts as fabricated. The allegations remain contested testimony and have not been the subject of any legal or disciplinary finding.
Sources: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/dec/04/reform-uk-deputy-richard-tice-farage-antisemitism-allegations-made-up-twaddle https://www.itv.com/news/2025-12-04/reform-deputy-dismisses-farage-schoolboy-antisemitism-allegations-as-made-up https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/dec/04/farage-turns-on-broadcasters-racism-allegations-bbc
Richard Tice said there is 'over-diagnosis' of SEND children and called ear defenders 'insane'
Category: discriminatory remark
On 17 November 2025 Richard Tice, Reform UK deputy leader and the MP for Boston and Skegness, gave a speech and a Q&A at Westminster in which he said there has been an "over-diagnosis" of children with special educational needs and disabilities. He described the sight of children wearing ear defenders in classrooms as "insane", suggested some parents were exploiting the SEND system to obtain VAT exemptions or motability vehicles, criticised formal labelling, and questioned the use of medication for some young people. Education and disability organisations including the NEU, Sense, the National Autistic Society and ADHD UK criticised his remarks as inaccurate, stigmatising and, in one case, "lies". Tice said he must not "generalise" and acknowledged there are cases where medication is appropriate while arguing there is over-diagnosis and over-medication; he remains Reform UK's deputy leader and MP for Boston and Skegness.
Tice suggested Ukraine drop its NATO bid as an 'uncomfortable compromise' with Putin
Category: other
In September 2025 Richard Tice said that if NATO membership for Ukraine was Vladimir Putin's "absolute break point", Kyiv should accept an "uncomfortable compromise" and set the ambition aside. The position went further than Nigel Farage, who had described NATO membership as almost essential. Labour figures accused Reform of descending into Putin apologism. Earlier, in March 2025, following the Trump-Zelensky exchange in the Oval Office, Tice suggested Ukraine could grant Russia a long lease over occupied territory as part of a settlement. He has separately described Putin in the Commons as a "vile dictator" and a "most evil, evil villain".
Sources: https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/no-nato-ukraine-take-putins-assets-says-reform https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/reform-descending-putin-apologism-anger-35868703 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/vladimir-putin-richard-tice-nigel-farage-ukraine-keir-starmer-b2706032.html
Tice said Reform would do a deportation deal with the Taliban
Category: inflammatory language
Location: LBC
On 27 August 2025 Richard Tice told LBC that Reform UK would be open to paying the Taliban to accept deported migrants, saying "you don't have to like them". On 1 September 2025 he described paying the Taliban and Iran to take deportees as a "sensible transaction" made in the interests of the British people. Nigel Farage subsequently rowed back on any suggestion that women and girls would be deported to such countries.
Sources: https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/reform-taliban-migrants-richard-tice-5HjdBWx_2/ https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/taliban-migrants-sensible-transaction-tice-5HjdBjF_2/ https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/taliban-reform-nigel-farage-richard-tice-hamas-b2817801.html
Tice accepted hospitality at the French Riviera home of Conservative donor Lubov Chernukhin
Category: undisclosed interest
Location: French Riviera, France
In August 2025 Richard Tice accepted hospitality worth £1,400 at the French Riviera property of Lubov Chernukhin, comprising £1,000 of accommodation and £400 of meals between 4 and 6 August. The hospitality was declared in the register of members' financial interests. Lubov Chernukhin is a long-standing Conservative Party donor and the wife of Vladimir Chernukhin, a former Russian deputy finance minister. UnHerd reported the stay on 20 August 2025 and reported Tice's account of discussions touching on energy projects. The declaration was lawful and no wrongdoing has been alleged by any authority.
Sources: https://unherd.com/newsroom/richard-tice-holidays-with-russian-oligarch-on-riviera/ https://www.inkl.com/news/richard-tice-accepted-stay-at-french-riviera-home-of-tory-donor
Tice dismissed man-made climate change as 'absolute garbage' on Sky News
Category: factual inaccuracy
Location: Sky News studio
On 17 February 2025 Richard Tice, then Reform UK deputy leader and MP for Boston and Skegness, told Sky News that there was no evidence man-made carbon dioxide was affecting the climate, describing the proposition as "absolute garbage". He also dismissed the idea of policy action by referring to the power of the sun and volcanoes. Climate scientists rejected the claim. Bob Ward of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the London School of Economics said the remarks were categorically wrong. In November 2025 Tice told Sky News that humans had "possibly" affected the climate, but "if so, a very modest percentage", a shift in emphasis rather than a withdrawal of the earlier claim.
Sources: https://news.sky.com/story/reform-uks-richard-tice-dismisses-man-made-climate-change-as-garbage-13311385 https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/news/richard-tice-slammed-for-spreading-climate-change-misinformation/ https://news.sky.com/story/humans-have-possibly-influenced-climate-change-reform-uks-richard-tice-says-13464430
Tice claimed a 'massive, massive cover up' of grooming gangs and 'two-tier justice'
Category: inflammatory language
Location: Sky News
On 5 January 2025 Richard Tice told Sky News that there had been a "massive, massive cover up" of grooming gang offending which he described as carried out by people of "mainly Pakistani heritage". He characterised the response to the scandal as "two-tier justice" and a deliberate cover up, and called for a full national inquiry. The remarks were made during a wider political row over grooming gangs in early January 2025, during which Tice also praised Elon Musk's interventions. Labour figures described the intervention as ridiculous.
Sources: https://news.sky.com/video/two-tier-justice-and-deliberate-cover-up-in-grooming-scandal-says-reform-uks-richard-tice-13283969 https://news.sky.com/story/reform-deputy-praises-popular-elon-musk-as-labour-criticises-ridiculous-grooming-gangs-intervention-13283966
Tice co-founded Leave.EU, which was fined £70,000 by the Electoral Commission
Category: other
Richard Tice co-founded the Leave.EU campaign with Arron Banks and was one of its most prominent figures. On 11 May 2018 the Electoral Commission fined Leave.EU Group Ltd £70,000 for breaches of election law, including inaccurate spending returns, and referred its chief executive Liz Bilney to the police. The fine and referral were made against the company and its chief executive, not against Tice personally. In September 2019 the National Crime Agency said it had found no evidence of criminality in Arron Banks's funding of the campaign. In October 2020 Leave.EU apologised and paid substantial libel damages to the Labour MP Naz Shah over a false claim that she was a "grooming gangs apologist".
Sources: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-44080096 https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/sites/default/files/pdf_file/Report-on-Investigation-Leave.EU.pdf https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/sep/24/no-evidence-leave-eu-and-arron-banks-broke-law-says-agency-brexit https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/leave-eu-naz-shah-libel-damages-b738538.html
Questions over deputy leader’s company using REIT to reduce corporation tax
Category: financial conduct concern
It was reported that Quidnet Reit Ltd, a property company associated with Richard Tice, operated as a real estate investment trust between 2018 and 2021 and paid little or no corporation tax on multimillion-pound property profits for much of that period. Company accounts were said to show net assets of about £33 million, ownership of multiple industrial estates and recorded profits of around £8.1 million, with analysts calculating roughly £3.05 million of those profits would have been liable to corporation tax at 19% absent the REIT exemption, equating to about £580,000 in tax not paid by the company. It was also reported that Tice retained over 90% control through connected entities, listed the company on the Guernsey exchange to qualify for REIT status, and revoked that status in August 2021 after a three-year grace period. He has defended the arrangements as fully lawful and said efforts were made to attract external investors, while tax experts characterised the structure as potentially "highly aggressive tax planning" and suggested HMRC anti-abuse rules might apply.