As Tories fall to lowest poll rating in 45 years, we publish Reform UK's plans to capitalise
In this 2nd part of our video interview, Richard Tice outlines more policies to Facts4EU's readers
Montage © Facts4EU.Org 2024
A fast-paced interview about policies that contrast with the Government's
The latest Ipsos-Mori poll published yesterday shows Rishi Sunak's Conservatives on their lowest-ever level recorded by Ipsos in its regular Political Monitor series, which has run since 1978. The Tories are on 20% compared to the Labour Party on 47%. This is their worst position in 45 years.
Meanwhile polls overall have been showing Reform UK led by Richard Tice as being the third/fourth force in British politics across England, Wales and Scotland. (The Rochdale by-election result was atypical.)
In this - PART II of our EXCLUSIVE interview with the Leader of Reform UK - Richard Tice rattles through his party's policies on energy costs and energy security, defence, Northern Ireland, and education.
A Brexit Facts4EU.Org Series
Part I – Immigration & integration, stopping the boats, tax & the economy, freedom of expression
Part II - Energy costs and security, defence, Northern Ireland, education (This report)
Part III – Crime, NHS, education, housing, extreme Islamists, Hamas, why vote Reform UK?
Both Brexit Facts4EU and CIBUK are non-partisan. We interviewed Mr Tice in the days after Reform UK's Spring Conference, following the launch of their 'Contract with the People'. We therefore felt his comments might be newsworthy and of interest to our readership.
We were granted an exclusive one-on-one interview, which we show below, and Richard Tice holds nothing back. This is a fast-moving interview which we have split into three parts, as Reform UK's leader lays out his strategy for changing the country for the better. Today we publish the second part of the trilogy. We leave readers and viewers to make their own decisions about his and his party's vision.
Mr Tice and his party will have a significant effect on the outcome of the next general election
Watch Part II of this fascinating interview here (9.5 mins)
(And please don't forget to "Like" the video and "Subscribe" to the YouTube channel.)
© Facts4EU.Org and CIBUK 2024
Tice interview extracts - Part II
For those readers who don't want to disturb people around them by watching the video, what follows are extracts and our paraphrasing of what Richard Tice said. He was also keen to promote Reform UK's policy document (linked below) which he says has been fully costed.
What will a Reform UK government do about energy?
- Scrap net zero, stop it literally overnight. Scrap the whole thing. Scrap the Climate Change Act.
- The climate has always changed for millions of years. It always will. Even the IPCC admits it'll make no difference if you go to net zero tomorrow. It's absolutely outrageous.
- We’re all being impoverished, jobs are being slaughtered on the on the altar of net zero.
- That, firstly, saves a huge bunch of cash.
- Secondly we've got to use the energy treasure under our feet, the oil and the gas in the North Sea, the shale gas, which is potentially worth hundreds of billions of pounds to taxpayers.
- Very simple what you do. A couple of test sites, independently monitored and supervised, also testing the emerging new technologies - other than fracking - that no one's willing to talk about.
- Monitor these sites for a couple of years, and then if there's any lessons to be learned, learn them.
- There are vast shale gas reserves that could be hugely wealthy and attractive to the nation. So we've got to go for that.
- We've got lithium we should be going for and we're going to stop subsidising.
- We need to tax the £10 billion worth of subsidies that currently take place for all the renewables. Ripping off the taxpayer is outrageous.
- Issue licences for more North Sea oil. This stuff is literally treasure. It belongs to all of us. And we should be we should be using that treasure.
- We've been lied to. We'd be utterly misled. And we've got to turn around.
- And this... In terms of the jobs and the wealth this would generate for the nation, it has vast, vast potential.
Defence
- Increase our defence spending to 2.5% of GBP within three years, and then within five years around about 3%. So that would be a 50% increase within 5 to 6 years.
- A wholesale clear-out of the woeful procurement in the MOD, bring in some seriously experienced people to buy better.
- Serious issues at every level. Likewise, the quality of military housing.
- Set up a whole Department of Veteran Affairs.
- Veterans have got so much to give after they leave the forces, because these people have got experience of logistics and discipline and structure and getting things done, dealing with problems, making decisions. A lot of leadership skills, which we need.
Northern Ireland
- The Windsor Framework - simple: scrap it. It's a disaster. It's even worse than the Northern Ireland Protocol, which was bad enough.
- They’ve put a border down the Irish Sea. Northern Ireland is essentially tied, it's handcuffed to the European Union.
- This was hijacked by the likes of Leo Varadkar.
- We should go back very simply to world leading technology used by the likes of FedEx, DHL for electronic goods, and that can easily deal with and track, using trusted trader schemes, the issue of the goods crossing the border.
- The EU's own expert, a gentleman called Lars Karlsson wrote a report entitled Smart Border 2.0. That was the solution. And yeah, it's going to upset some people. But frankly, that's what's required.
NOTE : Brexit Facts4EU.Org has published evidence on the NI Protocol and the Windsor framework many times over the last few years, including many in which the EU Parliament's expert is quoted, who Richard Tice refers to.
Education
- Students are leaving university with the highest debt in the developed world, with huge rates of interest about 7.3%.
- Unless you earn £60,000 a year, you can't get on top of the interest of the average debt.
- Put zero interest on student loans and increase the repayment period to 45 years.
- There are way too many people going to universities, doing Mickey Mouse useless degrees.
- Restrict that, probably by somewhere between 100,000-200,000 degrees.
- Stop the abuse of international degrees, which is a backdoor route into immigration.
- Stop the student working visas and increase the quality of the degrees.
- Dependants : the government's waffled on about it. They deliberately open the doors. The abuse is off the chart.
- Universities must offer shorter degrees, two-year degrees instead of three-years, to provide students with choice.
- You want to save £15,000? Work a bit harder during the year, and you can cover it in two years.
- Many of them would be much better working, doing an apprenticeship.
- Nurses don't need a degree. They need to get into the wards under a matron and then they don't rack up huge debts.
Reform UK's policies
In this interview Richard Tice references Reform UK's 'Contract With the People' which they have recently released so we have provided a link to this. (Click the image to the right.)
In this document they lay out their key policies.
As all regular readers know, both we and CIBUK remain non-partisan and this 3-part interview and links are intended to provide readers with information on which to base their voting decision later this year, whenever the General Election is announced by Rishi Sunak.
Observations
We are grateful to Richard Tice for giving up his time and for providing detailed answers to so many of our questions.
Given such a lot of ground covered, we split this interview into three parts. Part III is coming tomorrow and we suggest that readers will NOT want to miss this.
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[ Sources: Richard Tice, Leader of Reform UK ] Politicians and journalists can contact us for details, as ever.
Brexit Facts4EU.Org, Tues 05 Mar 2024
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