Reform UK’s deputy leader has defended the party’s suspension of a senior activist who criticised Nigel Farage, saying internal disagreements should be kept “behind closed doors”.
Richard Tice, who is also the party’s business spokesperson, made the comments as he unveiled a new policy of subsidising more apprenticeships, paid for by cutting student loans for foreign nationals and those studying what he termed “Mickey Mouse” degrees.
Reform UK has been stalling in the polls in recent months after questions about Farage’s financial affairs, with a personal £5m gift from Thailand-based billionaire Christopher Harborne under investigation by parliament’s standards watchdog.
The party has also faced splits over the actions of Zia Yusuf, its home affairs spokesperson, who described senior Tory Ben Wallace, a former defence secretary, as a “traitor”.
The decision to suspend Tim Montgomerie, a high-profile activist who defected from the Conservatives, came after he criticised Farage’s decision not to attend the count when he won the Clacton byelection, and said the leader had shown a “too dominant aggrieved tone”, arguing that “you don’t skip your own victory count without a much better explanation”.
Montgomerie, who had posed with Farage when he joined the party, was informed earlier this week of his suspension.
Asked at a press conference whether the party had become too thin-skinned and unable to take criticism, Tice said it was “far from” the case and Reform was beginning to climb again in the polls. He added: “We’re not afraid of competition, voters have got more choice and none of us have ever claimed we are perfect … we get lots right, we make mistakes, we push on.”
He said in relation to Montgomerie: “We are a fast-growing political party. There will be a range of views and sometimes we will agree and sometimes we will have a debate and discussion … but what we’ve always said is that when you’re having your discussions about those things, in the nicest possible way, as you would in a boardroom or a brainstorming sessions in a company, is that you keep it behind closed doors and then you go out and sell a message.”
At the event in Enfield, north London, Tice was appearing alongside Suella Braverman, the party’s education spokesperson and former Conservative cabinet minister.
They announced they would change apprenticeships to bring in a “wage credit” offering small- and medium-sized businesses a 30% rebate on the salaries of those aged 16-18. She also said the party backed an “apprenticeship retention bonus” of £2,000 a worker to be paid when they have completed two additional years of work at the firm they apprenticed with.
The party estimated the wage subsidy would cost between £1.5bn and £2bn over the course of a five-year parliament, saying it would be “partially covered by making significant savings from banning all foreign students from accessing taxpayer-funded loans and cracking down on taxpayer-funded Mickey Mouse degrees from third-rate universities”.
Braverman warned students getting their results this week not to “waste your time studying for a pointless degree at a mediocre university”.
“Whether it’s gender studies, whether it’s golf course studies, I think I’ve seen there’s not a necessity. There’s not a value in many of these degrees,” she said.
“Now I know that might be uncomfortable to those people who have those qualifications, but the reality is you’ve got to ask yourself: what are your graduate outcomes looking like?”
