- 6 hours ago
Reform deputy leader Richard Tice has expressed his "delight" for Andy Burnham's bid to stand in the Makerfield by-election. He insisted his party is not intimidated, saying that if Reform can defeat the Greater Manchester Mayor no-one can defeat Reform. Report by Johals. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00Well, I think our slogan will be more along the lines of vote reform, make Burnham history.
00:05And all the evidence is that this is a reform constituency.
00:09We did incredibly well back in July 24 when we got almost 13,000 votes.
00:14It was not a very safe Labour seat.
00:16And just last week, we won every single ward in the constituency by a considerable margin.
00:24And the truth is, last week, almost the whole of the North, where they had votes, they voted reform in
00:30huge numbers.
00:31We took control of whole councils across the North.
00:35And I think already we've supplanted Burnham.
00:39I mean, reform now, you know, we are the king of the North.
00:44Andy Burnham is allies of Andy Burnham has said he specifically wants to see because reform done so well there.
00:53If he can win over this seat, he can win over the whole country in places where reform are doing
00:58well.
00:59He's the man that can fight you.
01:01Are you scared of Andy Burnham?
01:03Definitely not.
01:04We're delighted because when we show that we can defeat Andy Burnham, it means that nobody can defeat reform.
01:11And it means that actually someone like Andy Burnham, who wants, you know, he wants more socialism.
01:17He wants to get closer to the failing, bungling bureaucrats of Brussels, like Starmer does, and the rest of this
01:25bunch of socialists.
01:27You know, why would you want to do that?
01:29You want to use your cheap, wonderful energy treasure, your oil and gas.
01:32But the likes of Burnham and Miliband, they want to ban us from being able to explore more gas and
01:39oil fields, which is just financially negligent.
01:43And, you know, if people want to bring the bills down, scrap net zero, scrap all the daft levies and
01:50taxes on, you know, on these due to these green policies.
01:56That's how you get the bills down.
01:57That's how you reduce the cost of living.
01:59That's how you reduce inflation.
02:01You've got more money in your pocket.
02:02People feel better off.
02:03What's not to like?
02:05Have Labour, have Josh Simons, have Andy Burnham just handed you a massive gift here?
02:10Are you going to be walking all over the North West saying, look, as we told you, this is an
02:14establishment stitch up.
02:16Look what they've done to get their preferred man into Westminster, into running the country.
02:21It is an establishment stitch up.
02:23And they're literally they're just ignoring and sort of putting two fingers up to their own traditional Labour voters in
02:33the northern heartlands who said, actually, we want Brexit.
02:36We want it done properly.
02:37We want cheap energy.
02:38We want to use our oil and gas.
02:40We want lower bills.
02:41And the last thing we wanted to do is is dragged back to towards the European Union.
02:46And that's why we want to Lancashire in the North West in May 25.
02:51That's why voters just have doubled down and said, we want more Nigel, more reform, please.
02:57And that's why it's unbelievably arrogant of the likes of Mr. Burnham to think that he can just walk in
03:05and walk down to Westminster.
03:07Do you want to say thank you to Mr. Burnham and the Labour Party for giving you this gift of
03:11what of a great line that you can now trot out to all and sundry up in the North West?
03:17Well, we shall we're going to be fighting this campaign hard with a fantastic candidate.
03:22And yeah, it is a it's a huge opportunity.
03:26But in no way are we complacent.
03:29You know, Mr. Burnham has his support base and we will fight for every single vote.
03:35But we do know how to win elections that are close.
03:38Sarah Poachin won in May 25 by just a mere six votes.
03:43So that absolutely proves every single vote matters.
03:48Do you have your candidate in line yet for this race?
03:53Or when will we hear that?
03:54Our selection panel is working as we speak.
03:57We've got a number of great candidates with fantastic characteristics and attributes for this campaign.
04:04So as soon as we can announce that, when we've gone through the appropriate due process, we will do so.
04:12All of that work is happening at pace as we speak.
04:15Do you have any time scale at the moment as to when we can expect an announcement?
04:19I'm impatient.
04:19So the sooner the better.
04:21But equally, we've got to get it right.
04:22And I'm not involved on the selection panel.
04:25Well, that pleasure is for others.
04:27But, you know, I know that you've got to move at pace, but equally, you've got to make sure you
04:33get it right.
04:34OK.
04:35Asides from Andy Burnham and what's happening in the North West and all the headlines that Labour are grabbing at
04:41the moment,
04:42Reform's had some of your own headlines.
04:44So the £5 million gift to pay for Nigel Farage's security, that is now being investigated.
04:52Yesterday, Mr. Farage did an interview.
04:55He said that this money was a thank you for delivering Brexit.
05:00Well, previously, he said it was to deliver him security for the rest of his life.
05:04Which is it?
05:05Well, actually, the two are the same in that what he was referring to was the reward for campaigning for
05:11over 20 years on Brexit was that,
05:13sadly, he is now the most targeted, most at risk and most endangered politician in the United Kingdom.
05:20And that's why it's a disgrace the state refused to pay for his security.
05:24That's why we're so grateful that a generous benefactor before Nigel decided to come back into politics was able to
05:31say,
05:33Nigel, we need to keep you safe and secure so you can make whatever decisions you want to make.
05:37And so that was a unconditional gift.
05:41And we're very grateful.
05:43The reality is, you know, I spend a lot of time with Nigel and he requires a significant security detail.
05:51It's a sad reality of politics in the United Kingdom today.
05:57It's a significant security detail he has, but five million quid is a heck of a lot of money.
06:01Are you, as part of this investigation, will you be stumping up the receipts and showing the public,
06:06this is what we got, this is what we paid out?
06:08I'm genuinely worried that actually it won't be anything like enough.
06:11I mean, he has a really sizable security detail.
06:15We don't go into the exact operational details.
06:20But a significant amount has to be spent on it.
06:25And, you know, do you want the receipts for my socks that I was gifted a few years ago?
06:29I mean, come on, just let's get real.
06:31And actually, voters have looked at this.
06:33And just last week, do you know what they said?
06:35They want more Nigel, more reform, more reform councils.
06:39And I think many people want a general election sooner rather than later so that we can have a reformed
06:44government.
06:45Mr. Tice, I'd argue if your sock costs five million quid, yeah, it probably wouldn't have received a receipt.
06:51Well, you know what I'm saying.
06:53Come on, let's get real.
06:54Let's focus on what's important.
06:56What's important is keeping Nigel safe, fighting this by-election.
07:00And also, let's talk about the timing of this by-election.
07:04Let's hope the chief whip doesn't play silly games and drag it out for many months,
07:08in which case we'll be applying to the speaker along with other opposition parties
07:12to move the writ himself, because normally it should be the chief whip that moves the writ.
07:17But if we get the impression that he's going to wait for months and months, that's not good for the
07:22country.
07:22We've got a vacuum of leadership, albeit we've had woeful leadership for the last 22 months.
07:28We need to get this sorted and over with.
07:31Robert Jemmerick is also being looked at.
07:34Donations to his leadership campaign when he was running for Tory leadership have been examined by the Electoral Commission
07:39and the Metropolitan Police over a sum of about 37 and a half grand that may have actually come from
07:47a US entity.
07:49Are you concerned about Robert Jemmerick's attitude to taking money from foreign donors?
07:56Well, these are allegations that are denied.
07:59And as you say, all this stuff can be looked at.
08:02I'm delighted Robert is part of our team doing a great job.
08:05We're working incredibly hard to build up our policies.
08:09We'll be putting forward lots of great ideas at our party conference in September.
08:13And, you know, all this stuff has been swilling around for weeks as everyone's trying to smear and libelous doers
08:19down.
08:20I just repeat the point.
08:21Most of us have looked at that and they said, do you know what we want?
08:24More successful people with experience who've been around the block, are going to get stuck in with conviction,
08:30how to stop the boats, how to get the economy moving, how to scrap net stupid zero to bring the
08:35bills down.
08:35That's what people want.
08:36And they want it done by successful people.
08:39And that's who we are.
08:40So you're not concerned about this investigation into Robert Jammering?
08:43Far from it.
08:44I'm delighted that he's part of the team, along with Suella.
08:48And look, we're winning elections.
08:50We're winning voters' confidence.
08:52You know, even since last week, the polls in the last two days, a YouGov poll showed us with our
08:58greatest leader, 11%.
08:59Voters want more of us.
09:01They want more reform.
09:03You have had a lot of success with voters.
09:08Some of your councillors, though, you know, since last week, we've had one in Essex resigned over alleged racist posts.
09:15We've got a Sunderland City councillor suspended over allegations of racism.
09:19Are you concerned about the number of racist allegations that are being made against your councillors, your politicians?
09:27Look, I condemn any offensive, inappropriate behaviour or writings.
09:35Of course, we have party processes.
09:37You know, I would just remind you that many more candidates were essentially withdrawn by the anti-Semitic Greens during
09:44that election process.
09:45And the mainstream media didn't make quite such a song and dance about that.
09:50So let's just bear things in context and repeat the point.
09:54When you've got 5,000 candidates, you know, if the odd person does something wrong and offensive, we deal with
10:02it, as would any political party, as they should.
10:06But I just repeat the point, despite all of this, you know, actually voters have said we understand there'll be
10:14the odd person that has to be dealt with.
10:16But we want more reform and more leadership from Nigel and more of those great reform policies.
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