What will Farage’s sidekick do next? An interview with Richard Tice

Richard Tice is tall and lean, has a hint of Imran Khan around the eyes, and the ladies on reception in the office building where we meet seem to like him. Were Jilly Cooper to write a political novel then he would be its hero rather than anti-hero. Tice was, after all, the clean-cut one in the ‘Bad Boys of Brexit’, a band whose line up was completed by Arron Banks, Andy Wigmore and Nigel Farage.

Tice is the chairman of the Farage-led Brexit party, a title he is finding irksome this afternoon as he would much rather by now be chairman of Reform UK, the new identity he and Farage have applied to the Electoral Commission (El Com) for. They applied more than six weeks ago and have heard nothing back, even though El Com told them they could expect a decision by now.

‘We are a well-known and significant political force and we’re asking for a name change.