Richard Tice calls for referendums on ECHR and Net Zero
Britons should be offered the chance to vote in a referendum on the nation’s membership of the European Convention of Human Rights, Reform UK leader Richard Tice has said.
With the Brexit Party successor staging its annual conference in London this week, Mr Tice tipped himself and Nigel Farage to spearhead a campaign to take Briton out of the EHCR, suggesting: “We’ve got a pretty good track record”.
Mr Tice, who served alongside former Brexit Party leader Mr Farage in Brussels as an MEP, outlined his opposition to the treaty, which Britain was one of the first nations to ratify in 1951, in the second instalment of his Sunday Sermon on GB News yesterday.
Accusing Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of being “completely out of touch”, he continued: “Listen to the people.
“We had a referendum on net zero and the ECHR, I’m absolutely convinced that the people would say scrap net zero and leave the ECHR.
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“Exactly the opposite of what the politicians in Westminster think. That’s why they’re terrified. They’re out of touch.”
Comparing a referendum on leaving the ECHR to the 2016 vote on Brexit, he added: “I think they’re also possibly terrified that it’s quite likely that the likes of Nigel and myself might well be very involved.
“We might lead those referendums. We’ve got a pretty good track record.
“I think that it is time that the people have their say. Let’s listen to the people.”
Opening the conference yesterday, Mr Farage himself accused the Conservative Party of copying Reform UK’s rhetoric, “but not the actions”.
Mr Farage accused to the Tories of becoming a “social democrat party in all but name” with “big-state, high-tax” policies.
Both he and Mr Tice are seeking to paint the party as an alternative for those on the Tory right who voted Leave in the 2016 referendum.
They further accuse the Government of failing to deliver Brexit properly by repealing more EU-era laws and controlling immigration more tightly.
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Speaking on the sidelines of the conference, Mr Farage said: “A lot of the arguments that we’re making, arguments on the cost of net zero, arguments on what is happening in the English Channel, for example, have been noticed, and the rhetoric was very much copied by the Conservatives over the course of the last couple of weeks, but not the actions.”
Reform UK has never had any MPs and also had a poor showing in the May local elections, failing to gain any seats despite fielding nearly 500 candidates and losing half its councillors, retaining eight.
However, the party has consistently been in fourth place in opinion polls at about six percent, just ahead of the Green Party.
It has returned the word “Brexit” to its party logo for its 2023 conference, saying it intends to reclaim the word from the Conservatives in the run-up to a general election expected next year.
Mr Farage, who has dismissed suggestions he would be rejoining the Tories despite attending their annual conference last week, said he would instead focus his efforts on backing Reform UK, saying there was a “gap in the political market” for the party to fill.
Likening its position to that of UKIP in 2012, Mr Farage said: “This party has been bubbling away quietly just under the radar.”
Reform UK plans to field 630 candidates across England, Scotland and Wales in the next general election.
It has ruled out standing aside to allow the Conservatives to gain more seats, as it did in more than 300 seats under its Brexit Party name in 2019 to avoid splitting the Leave vote.
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