Richard Tice responds to the suspension of MP Rupert Lowe

Evening Standard

Reform UK Deputy Leader Richard Tice addresses the suspension of MP Rupert Lowe from the party following allegations of inappropriate behaviour. Mr Lowe denies the accusations.

Transcript

00:00Well this is very sad Laura and we had been aware of Rupert's behaviour and we

00:08couldn't ignore these allegations and quite rightly the chairman Zia Yousaf

00:13said that we had to have an independent investigation led by Casey that is

00:18underway. As I say it's very sad it's unfortunate but we had to be decisive it

00:23was the responsible thing to do and imagine if we hadn't done that imagine

00:29if we'd tried in some way to brush it under the carpet that would have been

00:32completely the wrong thing to do. I'll ask you again though when did you first

00:36know you say you'd known from some time because the timing appears to

00:41many people perhaps people watching this it appears rather curious because on

00:45Thursday Mr. Lowe was very critical of Nigel Farage saying that reform was

00:49still a protest party run by someone like the Messiah and the very next day

00:55miraculously these allegations of bad behaviour which Mr. Lowe denies were

01:00suddenly out in the public domain and you called the cops. Well at the end of

01:05the day the chairman Zia Yousaf he had to make these difficult decisions and I

01:10was aware of that on on Friday where just before it was announced because

01:15that's the right way to deal with these things but in terms of the

01:20anxieties that we had had over Rupert's behaviour regrettably that had been

01:26going on for some time just before the Christmas parliamentary break as had

01:32previously been reported there was a unfortunate regrettable incident in the

01:37House of Commons itself so there was a there was an unfortunate trend here and

01:43we had these bullying allegations and they have to be dealt with I understand

01:48there's a parliamentary investigation and you know as a party there's a duty

01:53of care to people who are either directly or indirectly employed and it's

01:56quite proper and right that that's dealt with in the responsible way.

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