Reform UK leader Richard Tice found himself on the end of a grilling by GB News’s Political Editor Christopher Hope.
Tice’s party has surged in the polls while the Tories have dipped to a level last seen when Liz Truss was prime minister, resulting in serious questions being asked of how much of a headache Reform can pose to the governing party at the next general election, which is widely expected to take place in the second half of this year.
Hope grilled the Reform leader on his party’s plans to reduce the number of migants coming into the country with a policy of “one in, one out”.
“How on earth does that work?” Hope asked the Reform leader, before remarking: “You know jolly well you can’t be as simple as that in terms of numbers.”
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As Tice went on to explain, Hope blasted the idea as “simplistic nonsense”.
“You’ve asked me a question, give me the courtesy of answering it right”, Tice fumed in response.
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“We will freeze non-essential immigration. One in, one out”, he said.
“You can quite easily do that over an electoral cycle. About on average, 450,000 people leave the country every year.
“You can welcome smart immigration of a similar number every year right where you’ve got genuine skill shortages.”
Tice went on to compare running a country to running a big business, to which Hope interjected: “It never is.”
“I don’t accept that”, Tice responded. “It really angers me and I’ll tell you why.
“We’re not growing, we’re running out of money, so something has gone badly wrong.
“Why don’t we try something different?”
Asked about his plan to stop the migrant boats crossing the Channel, Tice outlined his party’s “six-point plan”.
“We’ve got to leave the European Convention on Human Rights. I’d like a referendum on that”, he said.
“We’d win it hands down. The country is sick and tired of foreign judges overseas telling us, a sovereign, independent nation..”
Hope interrupted and hit back: “They’re judges in a court in Strasbourg, which we signed up to.
“That doesn’t make it a foreign court or a foreign judge.”
In a furious response, Tice argued: “It is a foreign court because it’s not in the United Kingdom.
“That is literally the definition of foreign, Chris, and they are judged from overseas.
“That makes them foreign, right?”
Watch the full interview on Good Afternoon Britain, only on GB News, today from 12pm.