Tice says he will be ‘surprised’ if Reform UK does not get more Tory MPs joining – UK politics live | Politics

Commenting on Lee Anderson’s defection, a Conservative get together spokesperson mentioned:

Lee himself mentioned he totally accepted that the chief chip had no possibility however to droop the whip in these circumstances. We remorse he’s made this determination. Voting for Reform can’t ship something other than a Keir Starmer-led Labour authorities that will take us again to sq. one – which implies larger taxes, larger power prices, no motion on channel crossings, and uncontrolled immigration.

Tice claims he’ll “shocked” if Reform UK doesn’t get extra Tory MP becoming a member of earlier than the overall election (though he accepts that’s unlikely if the election known as this month, for a ballot in Could).

Anderson is talking now.

He claims he doesn’t know a few of the lengthy phrases that different MPs know.

And this has led to his views being labelled controversial, he claims.

He goes on:

However my opinions aren’t controversial. There are opinions which is shared by thousands and thousands of individuals up and down.

It’s not controversial, to be involved about unlawful immigration.

And it isn’t controversial to be involved in regards to the Metropolitan police and the London mayor failing on hate marches, he says, or desirous to struggle again in opposition to tradition wars.

He says he desires to get his nation again.

All I would like is my nation again. This may increasingly sound offensive to the liberal elite, but it surely’s not offensive to my buddies, my household, my constituents and a few of my donors.

And he says his mother and father, who’re each almost 80, mentioned they’d not vote for him except he joined Reform UK. He says he should not allow them to down.

Tice claims individuals’s considerations and anxieties have turned to anger and fury.

Britain is damaged, he claims. “And everyone knows who broke it.”

He claims the Tories have imposed on the nation mass migration, which he claims is making the nation poorer.

And he claims the pro-Palestinian marches are creating concern for the Jewish group. This can be a horrible indictment of the police and the federal government, he says.

And persons are “horrified” that gender ideology is infecting colleges, he claims.

And persons are involved about the price of internet zero, he claims.

He claims that individuals who increase these points are dismissed as bigots. Reform UK represents these individuals, he says.

He claims the Westminster institution has by no means been extra out of contact. And he says that’s the reason Reform UK goes up within the polls. In a single current ballot they have been solely 5 factors behind the Tories, he claims.

He says at this election in crimson wall seats Reform UK wish to exchange the Tories as the primary various to Labour.

And he says he has a crimson wall champion – Lee Anderson.

Richard Tice, the Reform UK chief, is talking at his press convention.

He says the chancellor mentioned final week the plan was working.

However nobody informed him the nation is in recession, and that the recession per particular person is the longest since information started 70 years in the past, he says.

Christopher Hope, the political editor of GB Information, covers Reform UK extra totally than virtually anybody else within the foyer and he’s reporting that Lee Anderson, the previous Tory deputy chair, is defecting to Reform UK. He was elected as a Conservative, having beforehand been a Labour councillor, however was suspended from the parliamentary get together after claiming Sadiq Khan was managed by extremists.

Hope has posted these on X.

BREAKING @GBNEWS understands that former Tory deputy chairman Lee Anderson MP is about to defect to the best wing Reform UK get together as we speak.
Lee Anderson and Reform UK not commenting.
Extra at @GBNEWS’ web site now. Watch the press convention stay on the channel from 10.30am.

BREAKING Sources near the Reform UK Social gathering inform me that as many as 9 Conservative MPs are in superior talks to hitch the Reform UK get together.

Reform UK are holding a press convention at 10.30am.

Throughout his media spherical this morning Tom Tugendhat, the safety minister, defended his determination to write down a joint article with the International Workplace minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan final week saying defence spending must rise “at a lot better tempo than at current”.

The article was implicitly essential of the finances, and was seen as pushing on the boundaries of what’s allowed beneath collective accountability.

In his interview on BBC Breakfast, Tugendhat mentioned that the federal government has already set out a dedication to lift defence spending to 2.5% of GDP and that Rishi Sunak was “completely proper” on this.

Requested whether or not the article (a put up on LinkedIn) had been authorised by No 10, Tugendhat mentioned it was not regular to clear social media posts via Downing Avenue.

And talking on Sky Information, Tugendhat mentioned:

Take a look at the world that we’re seeing as we speak. Take a look at the rise in autocracy. Take a look at the challenges that we’re going through.

This prime minister has set out that agenda and we have to ship it. I wish to obtain 2.5% now, you understand, as quickly as potential, that’s precisely what we have to obtain. First step to do is to get to 2.5% after which we’ll have to regulate because the challenges we face evolve.

Good morning. This week the federal government is because of subject a brand new official definition of extremism, and it comes after Rishi Sunak has been speaking up the risk, which he has partly linked to to the pro-Palestinian marches which have been going down for the reason that outreak of the Israel-Hamas battle. Two weeks in the past, in a briefing to cops, Sunak mentioned: “There’s a rising consensus that mob rule is changing democratic rule.” Then, in a shock Friday night time speech exterior No 10, he mentioned that extremist teams have been “attempting to tear us aside”. Later this week Michael Gove is predicted to publish a brand new definition saying “core behaviours” that might represent extremism embrace makes an attempt to “overturn, exploit or undermine the UK’s system of liberal democracy to confer benefits or disadvantages on particular teams”.

Whereas there isn’t any doubt at at that occasions within the Center East have triggered an enormous enhance in reported incidents of antisemitism and Islamophobia, a few of the authorities’s response has been criticised as alarmist, and even hypocritical. This can be a message posted by Charlie Falconer, the previous Labour lord chancellor, on X, final night time.

Falconer was commenting on a Guardian story by Kiran Stacey saying that three Conservative dwelling secretaries, Priti Patel, Sajid Javid and Amber Rudd, are amongst a gaggle of consultants on this discipline who’ve signed an open letter saying that the federal government must be constructing a political consensus on this subject and “it’s notably essential that that consensus is maintained and that no political get together makes use of the difficulty to hunt brief time period tactical benefit”. It doesn’t straight accuses the federal government of politicising the difficulty, however the authors of the letter clearly concern this can be a threat, and their intervention follows the row triggered by Lee Anderson, the previous Tory deputy chair, claiming that Sadiq Khan, the Labour London mayor, was beneath the management of Islamists.

Javid and Rudd have been each comparatively liberal dwelling secretaries (at the very least, in Tory phrases), however Patel was, and is, a rightwing hardliner. Any Tory minister whose crackdown on extremism is deemed by her to be going a bit too far can be clever to contemplate that maybe it’s.

Right here is Kiran’s story.

Tom Tugendhat, the safety minister, was on the media spherical. Requested in regards to the letter signed by Patel, Javid, Rudd and others, he mentioned they have been “completely proper” to say that the federal government shouldn’t be utilizing this subject for get together political benefit. He went on:

I don’t assume we must always, and I don’t assume we’re.

When it was put to Tugendhat that Sunak’s declare that the UK was turning into topic to “mob rule” was not useful, he declined to defend it. “All of us converse in our personal manner about numerous completely different points,” he mentioned. However he defended what the PM mentioned in his speech in Downing Street (which didn’t repeat the “mob rule” declare). Tudgendhat mentioned:

I believe the prime minister set out on the steps of Downing Avenue a really, very clear – and, I might argue, very inclusive – agenda on maintaining British individuals protected. He made the purpose, and I believe it’s the proper one to make, that extremism on this nation sadly has resumed. We should take motion to confront it.

Right here is the agenda for the day.

Morning: Rishi Sunak is doing a go to.

Morning: Keir Starmer is visiting a college in Essex with Bridget Phillipson, the shadow schooling secretary.

10.30am: Richard Tice, the Reform UK chief, holds a press convention.

11.30am: Downing Avenue holds a foyer briefing.

12.30pm: Former prime ministers Sir John Main and Gordon Brown converse on the launch of the Institute for Authorities’s “Fixing the Centre of Authorities” report.

2.30pm: Gillian Keegan, the schooling secretary, takes questions within the Commons.

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