Inside the little UK seaside town where locals seem to be loving having a Reform MP

Before becoming the Eurosceptic multi-millionaire property boss who fought tooth and nail for , MP was a classic Tory member and donor. Having made his fortune in business, he financially backed the and David Davis’ 2005 leadership campaign. That was until just over 10 years later, when a disillusioned Tice quit over military spending cuts under David Cameron, and pledged his allegiance to .

He went on to help bankroll the former UKIP leader’s Party, now Reform UK, after working on the Leave campaign. And having secured five new seats at the last general election, he is now on a mission to make the redundant. A vital part of this is persuading Brits that his new party is ready for government, as he told the Express on a recent exclusive walk around the Lincolnshire seaside town of Skegness.

Even though Reform’s deputy leader is perhaps not as high profile as Farage or the Ashfield firebrand Lee Anderson, the steady flow of locals stopping to enthusiastically shake their MP’s hand suggests his star power may have risen sharply. Walking tall and clad in a navy suit and pink tie, the privately educated Surrey-born high-flyer cuts a charismatic, striking figure and seems to connect with the residents of one of the most deprived towns in the UK.

“People recognise me,” he proudly says. “They see me around. I’m putting Boston and Skegness back on the map.”

Tice adds: “We are the party of the workers and the strivers, not the shirkers and the skivers.” He says Reform is going to overturn Sir ’s huge majority at the next general election, winning “all over the country, in huge numbers”.

To do this, Reform UK needs to convince a wide array of voters. Asked if the party is trying to broaden its scope, Tice says: “Well, of course, to win an election, absolutely. But we stick to our principles and our conviction. And I think that’s why we’re doing well.”

These ideals are being regularly espoused by Farage: “Family, community, country.”

Born in Farnham, Surrey, Tice grew up in the Midlands before living in London and Paris.

Asked about how he, as a wealthy individual from elsewhere, can connect with his constituents, he says: “The issues are the same all around the country. People are getting poorer. People are angry.”

Tice adds: “People respect hard work, achievements. People like successful people getting stuck in and telling it how it is. I think people realise, you want good people running the country, managing it, taking tough decisions.

“You can’t keep spending more than you’re earning. You can’t at home, you can’t at your business, and we shouldn’t as a country. I think so often people are lamenting the woeful quality of too many people running the country in politics. We do need higher quality people in politics.”

Reform, he believes, has become the “real opposition”, with its small team of MPs advocating “common sense policies” and speaking up for “hard-working, patriotic British folk who know that it’s a great country”. They have “been around the block” and “done things”, he adds, so they “know how to be successful”.

During the general election campaign, Tice, then Reform’s leader, shocked the political world by stepping aside for Farage.

Tice says: “I’d been urging Nigel to get stuck into politics big time, basically since he got back from I’m A Celebrity the previous December. We all knew, Nigel knew it was a massive lifestyle decision.”

He adds: “He was furious, I was furious and we knew actually in a sense, Nigel’s the most recognisable, famous politician in the country.”

Asked if he had made the call and urged him to come back, Tice adds: “Yeah. Obviously I’d been growing Reform. So I said, ‘If you want to do this, then let’s do it’. And so we looked at it, he looked at it, and we said, ‘Yeah, actually, this is doable’.” He added he was “thrilled to bits” and retorted “garbage” at the suggestion that people may have felt sorry for him.

A core part of Reform’s message is “multiculturalism has failed”, with the party claiming that people are angry about “mass migration”. “That’s the truth,” Tice says. “We want people to live and enjoy life under one British culture.” Census data from 2021 suggests 23.6% of people living in Boston were born outside the UK.

“They’ve got to integrate,” Tice says, “they’ve got to work, they’ve got to learn to speak the language. Many have, but many haven’t. And that is a problem.” He adds: “In Boston, you can walk through the town centre, and I love talking to people. But 40% of people will barely speak a word of English.”

He then suggests that people from eastern European countries, such as Bulgaria and Romania, are coming to the UK and trying to claim EU settled status to claim benefits. “There’s fraud, there’s illegality going on,” Tice says, “and we’re trying to stop it. It’s not easy.” He instead wants net zero “smart immigration”, taking in highly qualified people.

The businessman suggests the economy used to grow without high immigration, and says Britain needs to upskill people already here. “We can actually learn the lessons of the past,” Tice says. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. It worked then, and we know that we can turn it around. What we can’t do is pay millions of people to sit on their a*** at home.”

Census data from 2011 suggested 48 of 4,033 people living in Savile Town in Yorkshire were white British. There is also concern around segregation of different communities in northern towns like Blackburn. But Reform’s deputy leader says: “Skin colour is irrelevant. It’s about are you working? Are you integrating? Are you part of your local community? And there’s our slogan, family, community, country.

“Those are the key things. Getting stuck in, getting involved, getting up in the morning, going to work.”

Tice’s private life has come under the microscope with his partner, the journalist Isabel Oakeshott, having relocated to Dubai. She says she grew sick of Labour’s tax hikes. Tice visits every couple of months. He says: “My constituents back me up on this hugely.

“I’m working seven days a week, 24/7 and every six or seven weeks, I reckon I deserve a long weekend off in order to recharge the batteries, and people respect that.

“You can’t perform at your best if you are knackered and rundown. I’m always in the constituency. I’m visible. You can see today.”

Every time he goes to the Middle Eastern city, he “learns things”. “The arrogance of our establishment,” Tice laments, “who think we’ve got nothing to learn from other nations is absurd.

“And what I learned there, and I’ve known Dubai for 30 years, my uncle built the first skyscraper in Dubai in the 1970s, they are smart, they are getting stuff done. They’re growing fast.” He makes sure to point out that two words he does not hear there are “net zero”.

Farage’s tribe is doing well in the polls, and Labour seems to be fighting back by questioning their policies. In February, one of the party’s MPs, John Slinger, asked the Prime Minister: “The honourable member for Clacton says that his party is, and I quote, ‘open to anything’ when it comes to changing our NHS to… an insurance based system.

“Can my right honourable friend confirm that under a Labour government the NHS will be there for everyone, when they need it – not having to worry about the bill?” Sir Keir responded: “We’re making it fit for the future through our plan for change. What a contrast with Reform, whose leader has said that those who can afford to pay should pay for our healthcare.”

Tice tells the Express: “The NHS is the most wasteful department in the whole of the country. Just yesterday, I was in a pharmacy in Boston, and they were talking about [how] GDPR, ludicrous, is stopping different departments, different GPs and pharmacies, from being able to talk to each other through the same computer system, which means that time is wasted, money is wasted, patients are inconvenienced. This is madness.”

He adds the services should be utilising the private sector much more, buying up millions of appointments and scans. People should be motivated to “pay a bit more” for independent care if they can, Tice adds, which would be rewarded by income tax relief.

“Before anybody whinges and whines and says, ‘You’re going to privatise the NHS’. B*******. That’s absolute nonsense.” He repeated calls made by Rupert Lowe that the UK needs its own version of DOGE, the government efficiency body headed by in the US.

A major test of whether Reform can topple Labour MPs could be a by-election in Runcorn and Helsby after the incumbent Mike Amesbury assaulted a constituent. He is facing calls to quit. As we cross the road and head for the seafront, Tice says his party could pull off a shock victory, wiping out a hefty 14,696 majority. “There’s no love for Labour MPs that punch people,” Tice quips.

“It’ll be a two horse race. Frankly the should stand aside, they’re the losers. Let Reform win that seat.” That would be a “proper wake up call” for Labour, he suggests. , Tice says, “acts and thinks like an international human rights lawyer”, he does not think he “understands what his job is”. But, “credit where credit’s due”, the East Midlands MP thinks he is “getting better and more confident in the chamber as Prime Minister”.

We prepare to say farewell when Jamie Hallam, 34, a parts manager who lives on Lee Anderson’s Nottinghamshire patch, and is in Skegness for the weekend with his dad, stops Richard to say hello. He says: “We saw him originally down there and were like, ‘Oh my God, that’s . I can’t believe it’.” He and his Polish NHS worker partner are keen on Reform’s plans for the service and to “deter people from entering the country illegally”.

“Just put us first, for once,” Jamie adds. “Look after normal working class people. Labour just seem to have shafted us in the worst [way] possible. And Reform, at the minute, they just seem like they’re the only people that can change everything that’s happened.”