Tice's claim voters are 'delighted' by austerity raises eyebrows

Tice’s brazen lie about Reform voters being delighted by austerity raises eyebrows even on Talk TV

by The Canary

8 May 2026

in UK

Reading Time: 2 mins read

Reform had a good start to local election results on Friday morning, with the red wall repainted “turquoise”, according to Deputy Leader Richard Tice. But his other arguments even got pushback from Talk TV host Mark Dolan.

On Friday morning, Tice told Talk TV that he was hoping for an “accelerated” general election despite the economic pain it would cause, and that Reform voters would be “delighted” by austerity. His policies were called “reckless” by Talk TV.

Imagine a right-wing TV channel calling you reckless!

Delighted by austerity

Tice declared that:

you can’t have lots of people making a lifestyle choice not to work and to claim welfare.

He then promising a:

world-leading welfare system for the genuinely vulnerable, the genuinely disabled, and those genuinely unemployed looking for work.

Using “genuinely” three times in one sentence, ahem.

As for austerity times 100, which Talk TV put to him directly, Tice claimed Reform voters would be delighted because his party would scrap the net-zero pledge and replace it with:

drill, baby, drill.

Yes, he really said that. Maybe he’s been watching a few too many Trump interviews?

Economic crisis as an opportunity

When Dolan pointed out that replacing Starmer with a more left-wing leader – Ed Miliband, Angela Rayner, or Andy Burnham – would “freak out the bond markets” and likely cause an economic crisis, Tice replied with:

… will advance a general election, which is what everybody wants soon.

He continued:

What is in the national interest is to accelerate a general election.

His implication was clear: if the bond markets freak out and an economic crisis follows, that might force an early election.

This is a strategy Tice has talked about before. In a profile by the Institute of Directors, Tice argued that bond market panic, which he anticipates as inevitable, will be an opportunity for deregulation and then eventual growth:

We can prove the savings. We will deregulate alongside. Having done that, we can say to the bond markets, ‘Now we can afford performance-related tax cuts.’ The growth starts when you start deregulating and motivating investment.

That this man loves deregulation – read: less tax for the rich and more austerity for the poor – should surprise no one. The Times recently reported on a tax scandal involving Tice and a disputed £92k.

Tax for you but not for me! Reckless indeed, like Talk TV said!

Reform’s “turquoise wall” is just another part of the establishment’s austerity drive and the uniparty model. Don’t let them fool you otherwise. Whether it is red, blue, or turquoise, the wall always falls on the working class.

Featured image via the Canary

Tags: Reform

Comments 1

billkruse says:

1 month ago

Neither Tice nor the Canary (for the most part) nor all MSM economics commentators seem to grasp that the bond market narrative is nonsense. What we use for money, the BoE usefully points out, is Govt IOUs https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/quarterly-bulletin/2014/q1/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy
check the PDF & if you think when you get a bank loan the bank lends you money it already has & doesn’t create new money, you’ll want to check the video there too. Then I expect you’ll be reaching for your pitchfork while you mentally calculate how much compound interest you’re paying on your mortgage, money you just found out the bank made up out of nowhere when you thought you were borrowing it.
Before you head for the barricades, however, lets get back to the bond markets. If money is Govt IOUs, & as we all know when you return an IOU to its issuer it’s nulled, destroyed, the Govt can’t be borrowing money from the bond markets, can it?