Richard Tice makes bizarre claim he has been treated worse than ‘a paedophile, rapist or murderer’ by media and police

Reform’s deputy leader Richard Tice has made an alarming comparison, saying he has been treated worse than “a paedophile, rapist or murderer” by the BBC and Met Police.

Speaking with Jon Pienaar on Times Radio, Tice claimed that he has been “treated worse than a paedophile, a rapist or a murderer” in terms of the legal protection and privacy he has been allowed.

Tice specifically criticised the BBC and Met Police of this treatment. 

This comes after the BBC reported that Tice’s company, Britain Means Business, was being investigated by the Met Police over two donations it gave to Reform in the run-up to the 2024 general election. 

In the article published on 25 July, which included a comment from Tice, he said: “This is the first I have heard of it – if true why are the Met Police briefing the BBC before contacting interested parties?”.

He also questioned whether the Met Police was engaged in a “widespread politically motivated smear campaign against Reform and its leaders”. 

Pienaar referenced the “hundreds of thousands, even millions” of pounds flowing into Reform from unknown sources and asked Tice if he accepted the need for rules on party funding and the importance of complying with those rules. 

Tice said Reform had observed all the rules, adding “there’s a lot of mischief-making, smearing, discrediting, particularly to myself and Nigel Farage in a most disgraceful way”.

The Reform MP then added: “All I would say to you John is watch this space over the next 10 days”.

Pressed on what he meant by that, Tice said: “Just have a little patience and you’ll discover what I mean by that but frankly, there’s been a whole load of nonsense printed and done to Nigel and myself and we’re done with it.”

“We’ve had enough of some of this stuff,” he added.

Tice continued to complain about the media scrutiny of Reform’s finances. He said the coverage was “full of lies, innuendo, slander, defamatory stuff going on, particularly from some large mainstream organisations, and we’re done with it”.  

He then specifically criticised the BBC for sending out a push notification about the news that he is being investigated by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner over comments he made in a Commons debate on Israel.

The Reform deputy leader continued to say: “Just watch this space over the next 10 days”, but wouldn’t say what the party is planning to do.

One X user commented: “Richard Tice is facing legitimate media scrutiny and needs to answer the questions that arise from that scrutiny.

“@reformparty_uk throw a heck of a lot of mud at their opponents but bitch and moan when some comes their way.”

Another mocked Tice’s comments, writing: “Should be mandatory for all Reform MP’s to carry one of these”.

The comment was accompanied by a photo of a bank card with ‘Reform UK Victim Card’ written on it. 

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward