Reform UK’s deputy leader has refused to condemn a mayoral candidate for the party who said David Lammy should “go home to the Caribbean”.
Richard Tice said it was the role of the party to “challenge” the justice secretary. Answering questions after a press conference, he also refused to say whether he still thought the 25-plus former school contemporaries of Nigel Farage who have accused the Reform leader of racism and other offensive behaviour were making up their claims, calling it “old news”.
Reform has repeatedly declined to condemn comments on X by Chris Parry, a retired naval rear admiral who has been picked to contest the now-postponed Hampshire and the Solent mayoral election for the party.
In a post in February, referring to a news story about the UK government supposedly considering talks about reparations for slavery – which ministers have in fact rejected – Parry is said to have written: “Lammy must go home to the Caribbean where his loyalty lies.”
Lammy, who was the foreign secretary when Parry made his remarks, was born in north London to parents from Guyana.
Asked whether Parry’s post was acceptable, Tice said he had not seen it and seemed to indicate that such sentiments could be viewed as an acceptable part of political debate.
“I’m not familiar with what was said,” Tice said. “At the end of the day, David Lammy is a cabinet minister. Whether we think he’s doing a good or bad job is just part of politics. That’s day-to-day life. He will, I’m sure, continue to claim he’s doing a great job. We challenge him.”
A subsequent questioner read out Parry’s post to Tice, asking if he believed it was acceptable to tell a Black Briton to “go home” to the Caribbean.
Tice responded by asking if the questioner wanted to ask about the special educational needs system, the subject of the press conference, adding: “On Chris Parry, I’ve given an answer.”
Asked about allegations by 28 former pupils at Dulwich college of antisemitic and other racist and offensive language by Farage when he was at the school, Tice also refused to engage.
This month Tice said the claims were “made-up twaddle”. Asked if he still believed this, he replied: “It’s old news. We covered that a couple of weeks ago. We’re moving on.”
Danny Kruger, the former Conservative MP who has defected to Reform, also declined to condemn Parry, saying he was “not aware of the details of that allegation”.
Speaking to TalkTV on Monday, Parry indicated that he stood by his post about Lammy. “People should go to Twitter and see what was written and the context in which it happened. All I’m saying is, if you’re the [former] foreign secretary of this country, your primary loyalty must be to this country,” he said.
Asked if he believed Lammy was loyal to the UK, Parry answered: “Ask him.”
Anna Turley, the Labour chair, wrote to Farage on Tuesday after Parry’s interview. “Political disagreement over matters of policy is perfectly legitimate, but calling into question the loyalties of a politician on the basis of his ethnicity is racist,” she wrote. “Telling a black British man from London to ‘go home to the Caribbean’ is racist. It should have no place in our politics, and no place in your party.”
