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Farage says he's 'satisfied' with Tice's response to allegations his firm broke law by failing to pay tax
During the Q&A Nigel Farage was again asked about Richard Tice and his tax affairs by a reporter who asked why he did not know exactly how much Tice had paid in tax to settle this liability, and whether Tice should give that figure on the record.
Farage started with a hostile response, challenging the reporter to give him a lecture on Reit (real estate investment trust) tax law. When she said she wasn’t an expert on this, he replied: “Nor am I, thank you.” Asked again how much Tice had repaid, Farage said:
If our biggest critic is Labour activist Dan Neidle – and he is a tax expert, he is he’s good at it – if our biggest critic says that Richard Tice has not evaded or avoided tax, has paid the full amount, and actually, maybe even a little bit more the full amount, then I’m satisfied with that.
Neidle himself is active on social media and, while he does not seem to have responded directly to the press conference, he has posted these, responding to the Tice line that because HMRC has not lost out there is no story here.
Mr Tice’s line: a mere technicality and HMRC isn’t out of pocket.
It is, however, more than that: Mr Tice obtained an unlawful tax benefit – tax was paid up to 21 months late.
And Mr Tice’s payment didn’t fix the company’s failure to withhold tax – the tax remains due.
Is this an unfair result? It could be in the case of a normal REIT. But this was a REIT driven solely by tax considerations - Mr Tice has all but admitted that.
When you play tax avoidance games, you need to stick to the letter of the law. If you don’t, you win tax prizes)
Neidle has posted more on the story here.
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Farage says Orbán voted out because 16 years in power 'too long', rejecting claims it's defeat for Reform UK-style politics
Nigel Farage has dismissed suggestions that the defeat of Viktor Orbán in the Hungarian election at the weekend has implications for his brand of politics.
Orbán has been Europe’s most successful exponent of Reform UK-style hard right, national populism. Like Farage, Orbán is a fierce critic of the EU (although not critical enough to advocate leaving). Like Farage, he is sympathetic to the arguments used by Russia to justify its invasion of Ukraine. And, like Farage, he is closely allied to Donald Trump; JD Vance, the US vice president, travelled to Hungary to support Orbán ahead of the election.
But, when asked about the election result at his press conference this morning, Farage would not accept this as evidence that his side is losing; he said it was just that Orbán was in power for too long. He said:
If I was in power for 16 years, I’d be same age as Donald Trump, which I think may just be too long.
So 16 years is too long for any leader in any democracy. Nobody survives that long, whether it’s John Howard in Australia, a Margaret Thatcher, a Tony Blair. Leaders of countries have a term limit, and anything much over 10 years appears to be about what it is.
Farage also claimed that Peter Magyar’s election as prime minister was not “some massive lurch away to the liberal/left of politics” and that it was “not that massive a change”.
Streeting claims accuses BMA resident doctors' committee of 'holding country to ransom' with strike threats
Ben Quinn is a Guardian political correspondent.
A few dozen members of the BMA’s resident doctors’ committee are “holding the country to ransom” at a time of green shoots of recovery in the economy and the NHS, Wes Streeting has claimed.
In a speeech this morning, the health secretary had harsh words for strike leaders after doctors in England returned to work in their long-running row with the government over jobs and pay.
Asked during an event at the IPPR thinktank how much it would cost if he was to accept what was being asked for, Streeting said that meeting resident doctors’ pay demands and then rewarding other NHS in the same way would cost £30bn a year and “break the country”.
He said there was agreement between the government and doctors about many of the issues in the NHS “but there isn’t an acknowledgment from the BMA” that the £300m lost to six days of strike action is money that could have been spent elsewhere. He added:
I feel like we’ve turned the ship, the boat’s going in the right direction, except some of the crew are trying to row in one direction while the rest of us are going in the other. You can’t make progress that way.
Streeting said if the BMA’s underlying assumptions about pay restoration were accepted, “we’d be looking at £3bn a year for full pay restoration for resident doctors.” He went on:
Not unreasonably, I think other staff would have something to say about that: ‘We’d like some of that too.’
The BMA has accused the government of going back on an offer made last month to resolve the long-running dispute and is demanding pay is restored to 2008 levels under retail prices index (RPI) measures of inflation.
Farage dismisses suggestions that Trump posting pictures of himself as Jesus is evidence of cognitive decline
At his press conference this morning Nigel Farage was asked if he thought Donald Trump posting an image of himself as Jesus Christ on Truth Social was evidence of the president’s “cognitive decline”.
For once, Farage did not seem to have a snap response. After saying that was “broad canvas” question, and pausing for a moment, he replied:
He’s 80 in a few weeks’ time. He has a very unusual way of operating.
And let’s go back 10 years. People were asking that question 10 years ago. There were Democrats screaming ten years ago that the 25th amendment should be moved in Congress. And those same voices are saying the same things now. I don’t think he’s changed very much at all, which some people like and a lot of people don’t.
Reform UK would not let Holyrood hold second independence referendum, Farage says
At his press conference this morning Nigel Farage was asked if a Reform UK government would let a Scottish government hold a second independence referendum. Farage explained:
Referendums are genuinely meant to be a generational issue. And everybody was promised in 2014 that it would be a once in a generation referendum. And the result was perfectly clearl; it was a result to remain part of the United Kingdom. And there’s no reason to change that.
The question is becoming particularly pertinent because polling suggests that, even if the SNP do not win a majority in the Holyrood election, taking into account the Scottish Greens, there will almost certainly by a pro-independence majority in the parliament – and perhaps quite a large majority.
A party or a bloc needs 65 seats to have a majority in the parliament. A YouGov MRP poll published at the weekend suggests there are likely to be between 69 and 82 pro-independence MSPs at Holyrood after May.
Kwarteng claims Farage's £2m investment 'historic moment for Britain's bitcoin future'
And this is what Kwasi Kwarteng posted on social media about Nigel Farage’s £2m bitcoin investment. (See 1.08pm.)
On Friday we reached a historic moment for @StackBTC and for Britain’s Bitcoin future.
@Nigel_Farage executed a £2,000,000 Bitcoin purchase on behalf of Stack BTC at the @blockchain headquarters , backing our mission to build the UK’s premier Bitcoin treasury company and put London at the centre of this new monetary era.
A big thank you to @niccary and his team for a great reception and hospitality throughout the morning.
Labour criticises Farage over £2m bitcoin investment through Kwasi Kwarteng's crypto firm
Kwasi Kwarteng has a good claim to be the least successful chancellor in British history. But that does not seem to have dented Nigel Farage’s faith in his economic judgment. Last month it was reported Farage had invested £215,000 in Stack BTC, a cryptocurrency business chaired by Kwarteng.
Today Stack says Farage has bought £2m in bitcoin through the company.
BREAKING: Nigel Farage has purchased £2m of Bitcoin for Stack BTC - becoming the first sitting MP and the first UK political party leader in history to publicly buy Bitcoin. A landmark moment for Bitcoin in British politics.
In response, Anna Turley, the Labour chair, said:
Nigel Farage is hyping up a former Tory chancellor who crashed the economy, in a bid to line his own pockets.
From Farage’s crypto-boosting to his deputy Richard Tice’s admission that his business didn’t pay the taxes it owed, Reform are more interested in themselves than in standing up for working people.
Starmer says UK and France will this week co-host summit on multinational plan to safeguard strait of Hormuz when war ends
Keir Starmer has said the UK and France will co-host a summit this week on a “coordinated, independent, multinational” plan to protect shipping in the strait of Hormuz when the conflict ends.
He said:
The ongoing closure of the strait of Hormuz is deeply damaging. Getting global shipping moving is vital to ease cost-of-living pressures.
The UK has convened more than 40 nations who share our aim to restore freedom of navigation.
This week the UK and France will co-host a summit to advance work on a coordinated, independent, multinational plan to safeguard shipping when the conflict ends.
At the Downing Street lobby briefing, the PM’s spokesperson confirmed that the UK would not join the proposed US blockade of the strait. He said:
Our consistent position has been that we’re not going to get dragged into this war, but the effective closure of the strait is damaging.
The unconditional reopening of the strait is the only way to address the severe impact on the global economy, and our efforts are very much focused on convening a multinational response, which will put the steps in place to restore freedom of navigation and give shipping the confidence it needs to travel through the strait.
Tories claim Farage's plan for 'Boriswave' inquiry amounts to 'circular firing squad' given ex-ministers now in Reform UK
The Daily Express has reported a Reform UK source as claiming that the proposed inquiry into the so-called “Boriswave” surge in legal migration will consider whether what Boris Johnson and Priti Patel, his home secretary, was “gross negligence” that “amounted to criminal conduct”.
All this sounds a bit far-fetched. Asked about this claim at the press conference, Nigel Farage and Zia Yusuf did not say they were expecting an inquiry to find Johnson and Patel guilty of criminal negligence, but they did not rule it out either. “That’s the point of an inquiry,” Yusuf said.
After the press confernce, the Tories hit back. Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said:
We look forward to Reform explaining when their new converts will be hauled into the dock to explain the Suella Surge and the Jenrick Jump.
The Conservatives are under new leadership and setting out clear plans to drastically reduce legal immigration. Reform are busy stuffing their ranks with has-been former politicians whilst pretending they represent change.
And a Tory source said:
Zia Yusuf spent months publicly savaging Jenrick and Braverman. Then Farage recruited them anyway. Now Reform are investigating their own frontbench.
Nigel Farage’s idea of a functional shadow cabinet is closer to a circular firing squad.
Labour urges HMRC to investigate Tice's tax affairs
Anna Turley, the Labour party chair, has written an open letter to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) asking them to investigate Richard Tice’s company tax affairs. She said:
Richard Tice’s tax affairs are a major scandal, and they call his integrity and credibility into serious question. Reform’s attempts to describe tens of thousands of pounds of unpaid tax as “a minor administrative error” are laughable. The facts are clear: his business was supposed to pay this tax, and it did not.
It’s time for Tice to reveal the tax records that show what taxes he and his companies paid, and to pay any taxes they still owe. If he wants people to believe he’s done nothing wrong, he needs to prove it. The British people rightly demand the highest standards from their political leaders: they clearly won’t get them from Reform.
Tice has called for others to resign over tax errors, but now seems to think that the rules don’t apply to him. He has no credibility at all: he’s not on the side of working people, he’s just in it for himself.
In her letter Turley acknowledged that the last time she wrote to HMRC about Tice’s company, she got a reply saying they would not comment on individuals’ tax affairs. She said she was not asking for a comment; she just wanted to ensure there was an investigation.
Southport attack blamed on ‘catastrophic’ failures by agencies and killer’s ‘irresponsible’ parents
Axel Rudakubana was able to carry out the Southport atrocity because of “catastrophic” failures by multiple agencies and the “irresponsible and harmful” role of his parents, a damning inquiry has found. Josh Halliday has the story.
