Dicey Ticey was mid-flow at Reform UK’s conference in Birmingham when the stage behind him started to move. A banner rose up, remote controlled, and kept rising. Greenpeace had put it there.
It showed Nigel Farage as Mr Monopoly, a sack of cash under his arm, above the line “Collect £5 million, burn the planet”.
The deputy leader’s speech was disrupted. The main stage of the party’s own conference, in front of the party’s own members, and the thing everyone in the room was looking at was a cartoon of the leader holding money.
Two-thirds of Reform’s money comes from polluters
That figure comes from analysis by Desmog, which found that two-thirds of the party’s funding comes from donors with financial interests in fossil fuels, totalling more than £24 million.
Tice is Reform’s energy spokesman. Asked recently about the link between climate change and this summer’s extreme weather, he told people to “enjoy” it, because the heat was “fantastic” for English wine.
Amy Cameron, Programme Director for Greenpeace UK, said: “Tice wants to celebrate this summer’s relentless heatwaves and droughts because they’re improving English sparkling wine. But the only thing being toasted in England is our farmland, and the only way you could miss that is if you’re paid not to notice.”
Three investigations are running at once
The Commissioner for Parliamentary Standards is looking into the £5 million ‘gift’ given to Farage by Christopher Harborne, Reform’s biggest donor and a billionaire whose interests include cryptocurrency and a jet fuel business. Tice is under investigation by the same commissioner over a possible failure to declare an interest. A company he controls is being investigated by the Metropolitan Police over donations given to Reform.
There is more. Unearthed, Greenpeace’s investigative journalism unit, and Data Desk have published an investigation revealing that a jet fuel business owned by Harborne is contracted to supply the US military from refineries taking oil from Russia and Iran. Recent reporting has also revealed evidence of Reform accepting potentially illegal donations from overseas.
Nobody voted for more billionaires
Plenty of people gave Reform a hearing, and they had their reasons. Bills that never come down. Work that never feels secure. Towns that get talked about at election time and forgotten by the following spring.
None of that gets fixed by a party bankrolled by people who make money keeping the country hooked on expensive fuel. The distance between what Reform says into the microphone and who pays for the microphone is the story here, and a banner said it in six words.
Being angry at the people who ignored you for twenty years is fair enough. Handing the microphone to a party funded by billionaires is how the same trick gets played twice.
We need secure energy
Cameron put the alternative plainly: “A more secure, independent energy future is within reach – we just need the politicians in the pocket of the oil and gas lobby to get out of the way.”
That future does not need sign-off from a donor. Cheaper power generated here, and homes that cost less to keep warm.
Greenpeace say the country is already dealing with drought, heatwaves, wildfires and crop failures, and that other countries are getting it far worse. When the heat gives way to winter storms, Cameron says, 90% of homes in Tice’s own constituency of Boston and Skegness will be at risk of flooding. His seat. His voters. Their front rooms.
Tice told the country to enjoy the weather.
In Boston and Skegness, they will be watching the water levels.