‘It wasn’t immigrants that were cutting council funding in Hull, it was politicians’
On the most recent episode of the BBC‘s flagship political debate show Question Time, Reform UK MP Richard Tice went head to head with the general secretary of the University and College Union (UCU) Jo Grady.
The show – broadcast from Hull – saw a fiery exchange between the two panellists over the aftermath of Reform’s recent local election successes in which Grady laid into the party’s political platform.
Grady started her comments by first criticising the rest of the UK’s political parties – particularly Labour – for what she said was a failure to offer solutions to the problems facing the country and argued that this had played a role in driving people towards voting for Reform.
She said: “Not a single political party in the UK, and certainly none of the parties represented around this table are offering solutions to the issues that we face. Labour have moved further and further away from the average working class person to a point where communities like this in Hull, like the one where I’m from in Wakefield, which would have always elected Labour representatives, particularly here in Hull have turned to Reform.”
She then went on to lay into Reform UK and their political offer. She told the audience: “I want to be really, really clear, because I don’t think Richard Tice, and I don’t think Nigel Farage or Reform are the answer.
“Reform, and we’ve just heard it, are offering nothing for working people. They’re offering nothing on what is a rigged economy. They’re offering nothing on how we’re going to tackle privatisation […] nothing on the NHS […] nothing on a crumbling infrastructure of transport, nothing on wages and the crippling cost of living, nothing on the housing crisis. All Reform stands for are a status quo politically but with an added does of finger pointing.”
She continued by highlighting how Reform’s usual scapegoat of immigration is just that – a scapegoat. She said: “It wasn’t immigrants that were cutting council funding in Hull, it was politicians. It wasn’t immigrants who were slashing school budgets in Hull, it was politicians. And Reform would have been doing those things too.”
Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward
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