Reform leader Tice: UK is at the ‘Everest base camp of sectarian politics’

Mr Tice said he wanted to legislate against Sharia law being introduced into the UK.

Reform UK leader Richard Tice has said political leaders are running in fear of extremists (Joe Giddens/PA) (PA Wire)

Reform UK leader Richard Tice said the country is at the “Everest base camp of sectarian politics” as he said political leaders, the establishment and the police were all in fear of extremists.

Addressing the party’s spring Conference, Mr Tice received a standing ovation and one of the biggest cheers of the day when he vowed to legislate against Sharia Law being introduced to the UK.

Speaking to delegates in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, Mr Tice said: “I’ll tell you what is not the British culture, that is what’s going on with some of these pro-Hamas marches in and around cities and towns and London.

“That is nothing to do with the British culture.”

It's a terrible state for our country to be in and I think tens of millions of people up-and-down the country are genuinely horrified. And, particularly the Jewish community are afraid. MPs are afraid. The Speaker is afraid

Richard Tice, Reform UK

He said: “They don’t respect our British culture, they want to abuse it. They want to change us.”

Mr Tice said: “We actually need to legislate that we do not want and allow any Sharia Law in the United Kingdom.”

He said: “This is where we’re at now. Our democracy is being attacked.

“We saw messages being beamed onto the House of Parliament, in breach of the law, calling for genocide.

“There were police right next to the projector.

“And they did the square-root of zip.”

Mr Tice referenced the decisions made by the Speaker of the Commons which led to chaotic scenes in Parliament earlier this week.

He told delegates: “He did it out of fear.”

Mr Tice said: “An extreme bunch of people have created a sense of fear with MPs, demonstrating outside their homes, terrifying their children.

“So we’re now essentially being ruled by extremists creating a sense of fear across our country, our leaders and our establishment.

“It’s so bad that the police themselves are now fearful.”

Mr Tice told the conference: “We are at Everest base camp of sectarian politics in the United Kingdom, and it’s awful.”

He said he expects to see independent Islamist candidates taking on and beating Labour in certain constituencies in the coming general election.

Later, Mr Tice told the PA news agency: “You’ve now a situation where the police are afraid of extreme Islamist activists who, frankly, now seem to think they are above the law.

“It’s a terrible state for our country to be in and I think tens of millions of people up-and-down the country are genuinely horrified. And, particularly the Jewish community are afraid. MPs are afraid. The Speaker is afraid.

“Let me tell you, I’m not afraid. I’m going to tell it as it is.”

Earlier at the conference, Mr Tice told supporters the party will plough £17 billion extra cash into the NHS while implementing fundamental reform, including introducing basic rate tax relief on private healthcare and tax relief for frontline health and social care workers.

Mr Tice told delegates at the party’s spring conference “lefties” were wrong to brand his plans “the privatisation of the NHS”, saying the bedrock of the healthcare system needed to be the principle of services being free at the point of delivery.

Launching Reform’s “working draft” of the party’s Contract With The People, he said it showed how billions of pounds can be diverted to healthcare from savings made on interest payments to city banks relating to quantitative easing, moving away from net-zero targets and cutting waste in the public sector.

He told his audience at Doncaster Racecourse: “The last thing we need to do is to give billions more to the bungling, incompetent, wasteful, NHS bureaucrats.”

Mr Tice told delegates he has rebranded the Conservative and Labour leaders “Sinking Sunak” and “Starmer-geddon”.

He said: “Our country is in a bad state. It’s sinking under Sunak, and Starmer-geddon will make it worse but, with this contract, together, all of us, we are ready to save Britain.”

Reform’s candidate in Thursday’s Rochdale by-election, the former Labour MP Simon Danczuk, told delegates: “Our country is on a journey, but it’s going in the wrong direction.

“Nothing works. The Islamisation of our democracy. Mass immigration. Britain is being broken.”

Mr Danczuk used the opportunity to take a swipe at George Galloway, who is standing for his Workers’ Party of Britain in next week’s by-election.

He said: “We’re putting Rochdale first. George Galloway is putting Gaza first.”

And he added: “We’re on the cusp of achieving an historic result in Rochdale.”

Also standing in Rochdale are Azhar Ali, Labour; Mark Coleman, Independent; Iain Donaldson, Liberal Democrats; Paul Ellison, Conservative Party; Michael Howarth, Independent; William Howarth, Independent; Guy Otten, Green Party; Ravin Rodent Subortna, the Official Monster Raving Loony Party; and David Tully, Independent.