A car crash of an interview..
The problem with populists like Reform is that once you start interrogating their slogans and start asking about the actual detail of delivery, it all falls apart, just as it did for Reform’s Deputy Leader Richard Tice over the weekend.
Appearing on Sky News presenter Trevor Phillips’ show, Tice wasn’t best pleased that flaws were being exposed in Reform’s immigration policy, at one point snapping at Phillips.
Last week, Nigel Farage set out Reform’s plans to stop small boat crossings, vowing to deport 600,000 migrants over five years if it won power at the next election. Those plans included a pledge to deport and detain all asylum seekers, including women and children, as well as leaving the European Convention on Human Rights and scrapping the Human Rights Act. As part of his policy offer, he also said he would be fine with Britain funding despotic regimes in Iran and Afghanistan, in order to negotiate return agreements to take refugees fleeing their regimes.
Farage then rowed back on his vow to deport women and children.
Reform have also supported the anti-immigration protests which have been taking place outside asylum hotels throughout the summer.
With regards to demonstrations outside hotels with asylum seekers where law breaking has occurred, Phillips asked Tice: “Can you be clear with us that there is no encouragement from your party to the sort of person who wants to break into asylum hotels in masks and intimidate asylum seekers?”
“Of course,” he said. “What a ridiculous suggestion, Trevor.”
Phillips replied: “It’s not a ridiculous suggestion,” before Tice interrupted: “It is a ridiculous suggestion. Frankly, Trevor, that is outrageous!”
Reform have also said that they would deploy the Royal Navy to stop small boat crossings, with Phillips asking if Reform would ask the Royal Navy to sink the small boats if they didn’t turn back.
Tice, the Reform UK MP for Boston and Skegness, replied: “I think you might be suffering from a little August sunstroke, Trevor!
“Of course we’re not going to sink boats. Get a grip.”
But Phillips asked why Reform plans to send the Royal Navy out to the English Channel if they get elected.
Tice said it was a deterrent alongside its deportation policy, to which Phillips said: “Most deterrants work because the deterrer does what he or she says they’re going to do.
“If you put the Royal Navy out there, what are they, just interested observers?”
Tice failed to answer the question and deflected instead.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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