Tice defends Reform UK MP convicted of assaulting his former girlfriend

Richard Tice has said a Reform UK MP convicted of assaulting his former girlfriend 18 years ago will not be suspended and would pass the party’s new vetting process.
The deputy leader said James McMurdock was someone who had “got things wrong, learnt from it and has grown and succeeded”.
The former investment banker did not publicly disclose his conviction for assault before being elected, and claimed he had “pushed” his partner when details were first disclosed this summer.
Conviction
The Times later obtained information about his sentencing from the courts, which said he was detained for 21 days in a young offender institution for kicking the victim “around four times” in 2006 when he was a teenager.
Speaking after a party rally in north-west Essex, Mr Tice told the PA news agency: “We’re a Christian nation and part of Christianity is about faith, it’s about trust but it’s also about forgiveness.
“We’re all sinners, we all make mistakes, and James by his own admission made a mistake, a bad mistake, but actually he did his time.
“So the system works. He was sentenced, he did his time, paid the price and now he’s shown a great example of someone who had a bad start with a bad mistake but look how well he’s done.
“And what that shows actually is, we can forgive and we learn from things, but people can succeed. And I think that’s really important.”
When asked if Mr McMurdock could ever face suspension for his conviction, Mr Tice responded: “The opposite.
“He’s doing brilliantly and he’s a shining example of someone who’s worked hard, got a lovely family.
“His wife’s pregnant literally as we speak, with a new baby on its way, and to be an MP is a great privilege, and we’re very proud of him and he’s doing a great job.
“(He’s) really really focused on his constituents and it’s another success story.
“Someone who made a mistake, got things wrong, learnt from it and has grown and succeeded, taken a risk coming into politics and good on him. He’s put his head above the parapet and we’re very proud of him.”
Catastrophe
Speaking at the rally on Friday, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage conceded the vetting of candidates had been “probably quite near a catastrophe” in past elections, after several were dropped for making sexist remarks and using racial slurs.
But Mr Tice said he was confident Mr McMurdock would still pass Reform’s new vetting process, a system he has described as “getting better and better”.
He added: “We had many, many, great candidates but some candidates let us down. We had a vetting company that completely let us down, which is why we had some challenges.
“But to put it in context, the Green Party, at the general election they had to withdraw support from ten candidates. You never read about that in the press and I wonder why.
“So every party is worried about vetting. Every party is doing their best on vetting, it’s like an MOT. It’s good at the time you do it.
“But if someone then goes out the following day, has a bad day and says or types something daft at the wrong moment. It’s a never-ending process but yes of course we’re getting better and better and that’s a really important thing.”
Mr Farage compared Reform UK’s rise in the polls with Donald Trump’s presidential victory in the US, as the party squared up to the Tories with the rally in their leader Kemi Badenoch’s constituency.
Conservatives
The rally, which heard speeches from four of Reform’s five MPs, followed a spat between Conservative Party leader Mrs Badenoch and Mr Farage over party membership figures during the Christmas period.
Mr Farage told Reform members on Friday that the Tories “should be bloody scared of you” as he spoke about the argument with Mrs Badenoch.
The rally comes as polling suggests the party has pulled level with, and possibly overtaken, the Conservatives.
A Techne UK poll has put Reform in second place with 24%, one point ahead of the Conservatives on 23% and two points behind first-placed Labour on 26%.
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Tice is happy with abuse if it benefits him. Got it.
farage defends a convicted felon and abuser. Yep, seems about right.
I see a pattern.
For balance voters should be reminded that Plaid Cymru for a brief period in 2022 restored the party whip to the then disgraced MP Jonathan Edwards who had taken a police caution for domestic violence.
The vetting of Reform UK politicians in Wales appears to be zero. In the recent Cardiff Council Splott bye-election Reform UK’s candidate was Lee Canning, former members of the far-right Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party and someone who has recently campaigned with the racist Voice of Wales. While Reform UK’s proposed candidate for Caerphilly in 2026 appears to be far-right English nationalist grifter Mark Reckless, also a former member of Abolish who has peddled the thoughts of racists on his twitter account and whose views are so extreme that when running for the UK parliament in 2014 was backed by… Read more »
Stop tipping them off.
The vetting bar for this party will need to be high to keep the racist element of their voter base happy. They will need a lot of racist candidates. Also, did you notice Tices’ reference to this being a ‘Christian’ country? That’s making the point that it’s not a Muslim one. He couldn’t help himself. Not everyone who voted for Brexit was a racist but every racist voted for Brexit. Not everyone who votes for Reform UK is a racist but every racist (unless there is a more racist alternative) will vote for Reform UK. In both cases, they could… Read more »
One adjustment to the above. Racists may still vote Tory with a mere Rizla paper between them and Reform UK.
When you’ve got them at the very top of the party what’s the bar?
“We’re a Christian nation and part of Christianity is about faith, it’s about trust but it’s also about forgiveness.”
What about the love thy neighbour bit?
Beware Nationalists wrapping themselves in the cloak of Christianity, a popular ploy by the far right.
https://act.faithfulamerica.org/signup/christian-nationalism-resources/#what
Suffice to say I won’t be endorsing the party of violent misogynist bullies and their enablers
‘Bullies and their enablers’ strikes a chord with me. I’ve often made this comparison. In every school, there were a few bullies and their little weak cowardly band of enablers. I have been lucky to enjoy decades of life with this largely left behind but now it seems that this sick culture is taking control at the highest level and we are all going to be its’ victims UNLESS, as I witnessed three times in my school, we take it around the back of the bike sheds and ‘teach it a lesson’ from which, NONE of them regained their crown.
Teaching it a lesson means universally rejecting it at the ballot box. Nothing more.