From Richard Tice failing to pay tax, to Nigel Farage promoting a cryptocurrency firm, Reform's leadership continues to show where its interests lie
From Reform’s deputy leader being exposed for his real estate company failing to pay a £91,000 tax bill, to Nigel Farage promoting a £2 million bitcoin deal for a cryptocurrency firm that he owns a stake in, the behaviour of Reform’s leadership suggest a pattern of prioritising their own interests. Meanwhile, while Reform’s Zia Yusuf recently proclaimed that Reform has “the best vetting in the country”, this week, multiple Reform candidates and councillors have been exposed for expressing sexist and racist views.
1. More candidate and councillor vetting failures
This week, it was revealed that Adam Mitula, a Reform UK activist who was previously suspended for making racist and antisemitic comments, is now the election agent for a number of the party’s candidates in the local elections next month. Mitula was a member of Matt Goodwin’s campaign team in the Gorton and Denton by-election, but was suspended after it was revealed that he had said he would “never touch a Jewish woman” and had used the N-word in posts on social media.
A Reform councillor in West Northamptonshire, Peter York, has breached the council’s code of conduct by making a sexist comment about how “some women should have never left the kitchen” at an International Women’s Day event in March.
Another Reform councillor in Cambridgeshire, Andy Osborn, has been found guilty of breaking electoral law for posting a defamatory remark about a Conservative candidate in the run-up to last year’s local elections. These are just three examples of the many misdemeanors of Reform’s representatives this week.
2. Richard Tice failed to pay £91,000 in tax
Reform UK’s Deputy Leader Richard Tice is facing calls to be sacked after his property company broke the law by failing to pay tax on dividends. A Times investigation found that Tice’s firm, Quidnet REIT, did not pay 20% tax on £456,000 in dividends paid to the Reform deputy leader and his offshore trust, leading to a tax shortfall of around £91,200. Despite Tice’s firm breaking the law by failing to pay the tax bill, Nigel Farage has defended him. Farage admitted he didn’t know how much tax Tice paid, but claimed that his deputy leader had not ‘evaded or avoided tax and has paid the full amount and maybe even a little bit more’. Tax expert Dan Neidle called Farage’s statement false, and made clear that the amount of tax Tice and his firm paid remains unknown.
3. Nigel Farage promoted a £2 million bitcoin deal
This week, Farage appeared in a promotional video for Stack BTC alongside former chancellor under Liz Truss, Kwasi Kwarteng. Farage, who invested £215,000 in Stack BTC last month, was filmed purchasing £2 million in bitcoin on behalf of the crypto company. The Lib Dems have called for the financial regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority to investigate Farage’s promotion of the Bitcoin deal, arguing that it could “amount to market abuse and a conflict of interest”.
4. Reform is plummeting in the polls
Reform’s polling numbers have been falling for weeks, and now another poll spells trouble for Nigel Farage and his party. More in Common’s latest poll, which has usually had support for Reform hovering around the 30% mark, shows a five-point drop for Farage’s party. The poll put Reform on 25%, and the Tories on 22%. Labour has also gained a point and gone up to 21%. Meanwhile, the Greens are on 13% and the Lib Dems are on 12%.
According to another new poll carried out by Freshwater Strategy, support for Reform has declined by four points to 26%, while support for Labour increased by four points to put it on 22%.
5. Member of the public rinses Reform MP Lee Anderson
Reform’s Lee Anderson got rinsed while doing a stunt at a petrol station earlier this week. Anderson and Robert Jenrick were at the petrol station promoting discounted fuel, when a member of the public confronted the Ashfield MP.
The woman, a local teacher, criticised Reform’s prioritisation of “racist flags” over fixing potholes. The lady said to Anderson: “The flags went up before the potholes were sorted. You could not tell the truth if your life depended on it.”
“So get your silly little racist flags and stick them where the sun doesn’t shine. It’s pathetic. You’re pathetic.”
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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