Reform UK candidates have been warned not to post on social media after drinking, party leader Richard Tice said on Monday.
The party has dropped around eight candidates following complaints about their posts after left-wing campaign group Hope Not Hate trawled their social media history.
Mr. Tice said he welcomes scrutiny, but questioned why Hope Not Hate “didn’t spot the vile anti-Semitism from George Galloway’s party.”
At a press conference in London, where Mr. Tice announced Reform UK’s plan to clear the NHS backlog, he said the party will “part company” with candidates who make “inappropriate” and “unacceptable” remarks.
“We’re very clear to all our candidates—for heaven’s sake if you’re going to have a glass on a Friday night then don’t use social media,” he told reporters.
“It’s not sensible, if someone lets us down hereafter, then, frankly, if it is inappropriate, if it is unacceptable, then we’re going to part company.”
Mr. Tice said people have freedom of speech but not the right to represent Reform UK as a parliamentary candidate.
Jonathan Kay, who was standing for election in South Ribble, disappeared from the candidate list after Hope Not Hate found posts on social media platform X in which he said Africans and Muslims have low average IQs and labelled London Mayor Sadiq Khan a “far left Muslim supremacist.”
Mick Greenhough, who was Reform UK’s candidate in Orpington, was dropped after Hope Not Hate found his X posts in 2019 saying Ashkenazi Jews have “caused the world massive misery,” and a post in 2023 saying Muslims should be removed from the country.
Hope Not Hate has made it their mission to expose what they consider “far-right extremism.”
Benjamin “Beau” Dade and Ian Harris were dropped as candidates for Swindon South and Lewes, respectively, following similar investigations by Hope Not Hate, while Ginny Ball in Rutland and Stamford, Nick Davies in North East Bedfordshire, David Carpin in Henley on Thames, and Roger Hoe in Beverley and Holderness have all been sacked for comments made on social media.
The party has also drawn criticism over some of its other candidates, including a convicted animal abuser and a fortune-teller who sold spells for £200 on the OnlyFans website.
Speaking to the PA news agency on Monday, Mr. Tice said any organisation of more than 600 people is going to lose 1 or 2 percent for doing “something daft.”
“Every party has their share, frankly, of muppets and morons—you’ve seen it with the sexual weirdos going on in the Tory party, we’ve seen it with the anti-Semitism in the Labour Party and George Galloway’s party,” he said.
The party leader also told reporters that vetting candidates is “like an MOT” because people can post something in appropriate the day after they are vetted.
Asked whether he had given in to Hope Not Hate and the “far left” by sacking candidates, Mr. Tice told GB News he welcomes “scrutiny from whoever.”
It’s “absolute garbage” that he had given in to Hope Not Hate, Mr. Tice said.
“I’ve been very clear to Hope Not Hate today. Funny how their supposedly diligent researchers didn’t spot the vile anti-Semitism from George Galloway’s party.
Tice: Party of the Working Class
At the press conference on Monday, Mr. Tice courted Brexit-voting constituents, in a bid to persuade them to switch from the Conservatives to Reform, rather than backing Labour.“We are now actually polling the highest amongst Brexiteers across the whole of the UK. We’re above the Tories in the north, equal in the Midlands, so we’re making huge strides,” he said.
Mr. Tice said the country was “completely and utterly broken” after 14 years of Tory rule. He also accused Labour of betraying working class voters in favour of a “woke” agenda, and said Reform is now “the party of the working class.”
During the conference, Mr. Tice announced the party’s proposal to get rid of NHS waiting lists within the next two years.
He told reporters the party would incentivise those who can “pay a bit more” by giving tax relief on private health insurance, saying it would reduce the demand on the NHS.
He also said the plan would be paid for by scrapping plans to reach net zero by 2050, saying the green agenda is “ridiculous” and “would have achieved nothing.”
