Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice at the count for the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election at the South Lanarkshire Council headquarters in Hamilton, June 5, 2025
MULTIMILLIONAIRE Reform UK MP Richard Tice’s attack on public-sector pensions exposes the party’s anti-working class character.
The claim that “gold-plated” pensions for public servants such as health and education workers are an impossible burden on the taxpayer is classic divide-and-rule propaganda.
Tice wants an end to defined benefit pension schemes, which provide a predictable income in retirement. But the scandal is not that these schemes still exist in the public sector but that they have been steadily withdrawn across the private sector.
Pensions are deferred wages and attacks on retirement income form part of the decades-long assault on working-class living standards, with wages accounting for a shrinking share of GDP since the 1970s while the share taken in profits and rents has risen.
Britain is not broke: rather we are living through what the Sunday Times Rich List has called a “golden age of the super rich.” British billionaires increased their wealth by £35 million every single day last year; banks and energy companies post record-breaking profits year on year.
Nigel Farage explains the politics of Reform UK: Racism, Fake anti-establishmentism, Deregulation, Corporatism, Climate Change Denial, Mysogyny and Transphobia.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Labour’s disability benefit cuts will impact an estimated 800,000 people, of whom half will lose their PIP entirely
More than half of disabled people with daily living needs in parts of England and Wales could lose their benefits under the government’s welfare cuts, the Big Issue can reveal.
Analysis of data from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), which was published in response to a written parliamentary question from Liberal Democrat work and pensions spokesman Steve Darling, shows that at least half of all current claimants of the personal independence payment (PIP) daily living allowance in ten constituencies could lose this benefit under the government’s plans, which MPs are set to vote on next month.
These include highly deprived Labour seats such as Tipton and Wednesbury and Wolverhampton South East – the constituency of senior cabinet minister Pat McFadden. Meanwhile the least affected constituencies tend to be those with much lower deprivation levels such as Guildford – although even here, more than a third of PIP daily living claimants are at risk from the cuts.
The most exposed constituency is Boston and Skegness, where 52% of claimants are at risk. The seat is represented in parliament by Reform UK’s deputy leader Richard Tice. Polling for the Big Issue recently found that 68% of Reform voters believe Labour is failing on poverty.
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The DWP’s dataset is detailed, showing what proportion of current PIP daily living claimants with each type of disability scored under four points in all daily living assessment categories, putting them at risk from Labour’s plans:
There are 97 seats where at least 80% of PIP daily living claimants with arthritis are at risk, peaking at 87% in Derbyshire Dales
Almost three-quarters of claimants with cardiovascular disease in North Cotswolds could lose out under the cuts
More than 70% of claimants with multiple sclerosis and neuropathic diseases in Lewisham East and Sheffield Heeley are exposed to the rule change
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has published an interactive breakdown of the figures by constituency, though not including figures for the overall PIP caseload in each seat.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and Reform UK treasurer Nick Candy in front of an oil extraction site. DeSmog collage. Credit: GB News / YouTube / Damien Goodyear / SOPA Images / Alamy
Nigel Farage’s Reform UK is attempting to raise money from the fossil fuel industry, the Financial Times has revealed.
The newspaper reports that Reform UK treasurer Nick Candy – a billionaire property developer – has been launching a drive to raise funds from wealthy offshore donors in low-tax jurisdictions including Monaco, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Switzerland. Expatriates registered to vote in the UK can donate to UK political parties, as can foreign individuals with a business in the country.
Part of this drive has involved soliciting donations from oil and gas executives. Candy told the Financial Times that an energy executive had donated £100,000 to the party last week, and pledged to give up to £1 million. Candy added that Reform was targeting oil and gas donors who are “very disillusioned” with current UK government policies.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer yesterday said: “homegrown clean energy is in the DNA of my government”, as he pledged to accelerate the transition from fossil fuels to renewables. While the UK’s oil and gas reserves are dwindling, the country’s green economy grew by 10 percent in 2024.
By contrast, Reform advocates for clean energy policies to be scrapped, including cancelling the UK’s commitment to achieving net zero emissions by 2050.
“This is textbook Nigel Farage,” said Ami McCarthy, head of politics at Greenpeace UK. “While he may enjoy cosplaying as a ‘man of the people’, in reality, Reform’s agenda is a shopping list of policies that will turbo-drive the profits of the very richest.
“Taking money from fossil fuel execs whilst pushing their misinformation will keep families tied to volatile oil and gas with sky-high energy bills, and further climate breakdown for our children and grandchildren.
“By going cap in hand to fossil fuel firms and millionaires in offshore tax havens, Farage is making it very clear who he’s working for: his elite mates, not us.”
Reform UK and its senior figures have repeatedly questioned basic climate science. Speaking at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in February, while admitting that he knew little about climate science, Farage claimed it was “absolutely nuts” that CO2 is considered to be a pollutant. He also suggested on the BBC’s Today programme this week that climate change may not be caused by humans.
Farage’s deputy Richard Tice, who has donated substantial sums to the party in recent years, has claimed that “CO2 is not poison; it’s plant food”.
In reality, authors working for the world’s foremost climate science body, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), have said that “it is a statement of fact, we cannot be any more certain; it is unequivocal and indisputable that humans are warming the planet”.
The IPCC has also stated that carbon dioxide pollution “is responsible for most of global warming” since the late 19th century, which has increased the “severity and frequency of weather and climate extremes, like heat waves, heavy rains, and drought” – all of which “will put a disproportionate burden on low-income households and thus increase poverty levels.”
As revealed by DeSmog, Reform received at least £2.3 million from fossil fuel interests, polluters and climate deniers prior to the 2024 general election campaign – equivalent to 92 percent of its funding during the period.
“This is further evidence that Reform is copying Donald Trump and pretending that climate change does not exist,” said Bob Ward, Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics. “But the reality of making the UK more dependent on fossil fuels is that we would be more at the mercy of international markets and so would have energy that is more insecure, more unaffordable and more unsustainable.”
Reform UK treasurer Nick Candy has been attempting to extract cash from fossil fuel executives.
Led by Donkeys poster quotes Nigel Farage “Brexit has failed”Nigel Farage explains the politics of Reform UK: Racism, Fake anti-establishmentism, Deregulation, Corporatism, Climate Change Denial, Mysogyny and Transphobia.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Richard Tice claimed there are “thousands” of scientists who agreed with him Pic: PA
Richard Tice also said the scientists who agreed with him were “not a minority”, though his view is contrary to major consensus.
Scientists have spoken out after Reform UK’s deputy leader dismissed scientific consensus on man-made climate as “garbage”.
Richard Tice MP told Sky’s political correspondent Ali Fortescue: “There’s no evidence that man-made CO2 is going to change climate change. Given that it’s gone on for millions of years, it will go on for millions of years.”
Fortescue challenged him with the findings of more than 200 international scientists that humans activities like burning fossil fuels are to blame for the recent hotter climate.
Human influence is “unequivocal”, said the report, which was signed off by all governments, including fossil-fuel-rich Russia, USA and Saudi Arabia.
“No, that’s absolute garbage,” Mr Tice said. “The climate changed for millions of years before man-made CO2.”
Dr George Adamson from King’s College London said the idea that Richard Tice had “discovered something that climate scientists don’t know about is of course preposterous”.
The climate did change for years before humans began burning fossil fuels at scale.
Nigel Farage explains the politics of Reform UK: Racism, Fake anti-establishmentism, Deregulation, Corporatism, Climate Change Denial, Mysogyny and Transphobia.Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
Racism is central to Reform UK, but the party is also entangled with anti‑establishment fakery, climate change denial, transphobia, misogyny and pro‑corporate policies.
The anti-establishment fakery was on display last November, when Farage posted on social media, “Big business and big government work together. There is nothing about Sir Keir Starmer that represents change.”Adding to this already vile concoction of politics is misogyny and transphobia. This was on display at Reform UK’s recent regional conference in Leicester, where Tice opened his speech with a transphobic joke about pronouns. The result is an over-arching package of the politics of division. This is hardly a surprise from a party whose senior members say they look to Marine Le Pen’s fascist National Rally (RN) and the far right Alternative for Germany (AfD) as inspiration.
Farage likes to paint Reform UK as the insurgent force in British politics. He claims that Reform UK is “very much on the side of the little guy or woman”. Its MPs often denounce the two-party system and multinational corporations in favour of “real entrepreneurship”. This language is an attempt to mobilise the historic base of the far right, which has typically built among small producers and independent professionals.
But Reform UK is as establishment as it gets. Four out of the five Reform UK MPs—Nigel Farage, Richard Tice, Rupert Lowe and Lee Anderson—are millionaires.
Its policies are a mish-mash of pro-corporate proposals. Tax cuts for business, austerity measures totalling £50 billion a year, a massive programme of deregulation, tax relief for private healthcare, abolishing inheritance tax for property under £2 million and scrapping net zero climate targets.
It’s clear the party stands for putting more money in the pockets of the bosses and the rich.
And it uses climate denial to drive further division. Deputy leader Richard Tice is one of the worst for this. At one point he stated “there is no climate crisis” and claimed “CO2 isn’t a poison. It’s plant food”.
Adding to this already vile concoction of politics is misogyny and transphobia. This was on display at Reform UK’s recent regional conference in Leicester, where Tice opened his speech with a transphobic joke about pronouns. The result is an over-arching package of the politics of division. This is hardly a surprise from a party whose senior members say they look to Marine Le Pen’s fascist National Rally (RN) and the far right Alternative for Germany (AfD) as inspiration.
Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice at the count for the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election at the South Lanarkshire Council headquarters in Hamilton, June 5, 2025
