Tice falsely claimed the PM said things like “take up arms” and “go for the enemy”
Reform Deputy leader Richard Tice went on Sky News to attack Keir Starmer’s Labour conference speech.
Asked what Reform was angry about, Tice used words the prime minister never actually said to accuse him of inciting violence.
The Reform MP claimed: “He literally used the words arms, take up arms, and go for the enemy.”
Starmer did not use the words arms in his speech, nor did he say to “take up arms” or “go for the enemy, just the most extraordinary language.”
Instead, Starmer said that if Reform says people who have lived in the UK for generations should now be deported, “we will fight you with everything we have”.
The PM said that Reform’s deportation plan would make it the “enemy of national renewal”.
The Reform MP also claimed that Starmer had “essentially given the far left, the likes of the masked thugs Antifa, the licence to come at us, come at Nigel Farage”.
In his conference speech, Starmer spoke about Labour taking the fight to Reform ahead of the next election. He did not call on the far-left to target Reform, nor did he make any reference to Antifa.
The Sky journalist responded, asking: “At the same time Richard, I mean, this is the rough and tumble of politics, isn’t it? Look at what some people inside Reform have said in the past, what the President of the United States has said in the past, stuff that you’ve agreed with.
“I mean this language is batted around all time, isn’t it?”.
Tice went on to repeat words Starmer didn’t say, again: “No it’s not actually, not suggesting that you take up arms, particularly at a sensitive time just a couple of weeks after Charlie Kirk was brutally assassinated.”
The Reform politician then repeated a claim that Zia Yusuf made to journalists yesterday, alleging that the government cut Farage’s publicly-funded security detail by 75% two weeks ago.
Home Office minister Mike Tapp said that if any decision was made to reduce Farage’s security, it would have come from an independent parliamentary security authority, rather than the Home Office.
Tice said he had condemned Elon Musk’s recent comments at Tommy Robinson’s Unite the Kingdom rally, where he said: “Whether you choose violence or not, violence is coming to you. You either fight back or you die, that’s the truth.”
He then said: “There’s a difference between free speech and inciting violence.”
Critics have pointed out that Reform has hailed Lucy Connolly, who was jailed for inciting racial hatred against asylum seekers by calling for asylum hotels to be set on fire, as their hero.
In addition, it has also been pointed out that in 2017, Farage himself threatened to take up arms.
Farage said he would “pick up a rifle and head for the front lines” if then prime minister Theresa May did not deliver Brexit.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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