Do we like them?

Do we like Richard Tice?

Our score: 3 out of 10. Open investigations, a climate stance that campaigners slammed and a thin record of any good, with nothing of his own on trans people found.

The freshest mess is money. In July it emerged that the Met Police are investigating donations to Reform UK made through a company Tice controls. The investigation began after an Electoral Commission referral, and Tice has denied wrongdoing and called the reporting a “politically motivated smear”. No charge has been reported, so treat it as an open question, not a verdict.

A few weeks later the parliamentary standards commissioner opened an inquiry into whether he failed to declare an interest during a Commons debate on Israel. An investigation on its own doesn't mean a rule was broken, and Tice has said the complaint came from an anti-Israel lobby group. It's another thing hanging over him, and it's not settled in the sources I could open.

On the planet, the record is not great. In August he said climate change is real but that there's no evidence net zero policies would stop it, and called the idea that it could be stopped arrogant. Campaigners hit back hard. Scrapping net zero is a headline Reform policy he fronts as energy spokesman, so this is the position he is paid to push, not a slip.

On migrants, he told LBC he is open to a deportation deal with the Taliban, arguing “sometimes you have to do business with people that you may not like”. Where you land depends on whether you read that as hard-nosed pragmatism or as shipping people back to a regime with a grim record. It is a position about policy, not a slur, but it is hardly a warm one.

On LGBTQ+ and trans people, the honest answer is a gap. I found nothing in his own words on trans people. His party's 2024 manifesto took aim at “transgender ideology” and pronoun swapping, and he is its deputy leader, but that is the party's pitch and I won't pin it on him as his personal view. Other politicians have said far worse, but he hasn't been a loud voice on this either.

The good stuff is thin in what I could verify. In a December 2025 column for local outlet Boston Vibe he mentioned a charity bet on Boston United, with any winnings going to the Butterfly Hospice, and he invites constituents to contact his office for help. That's fine and pleasant, but it's not the same as a record of standing up for others at a cost to himself.