The founder of the UK's fastest-growing political movement has said the British government needs to get tough on branding the Muslim Brotherhood a "terror group" as part of a wholesale effort to strengthen its global standing.
Richard Tice, a spokesman on finance and foreign affairs for Reform UK, suggested that the right-wing party would bring in the stamp of firm government if led to power by Nigel Farage.
One test he set out for Reform was how it would approach the activities of radical groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, which has not faced legal scrutiny by either Labour or Tory governments. “We don't want them in our country,” he said. “We don't want them on our streets or setting up bank accounts here.”
The National has recently reported that the group uses part of London as a hub for its activities, unbothered by the imposition of sanctions in other countries, including the US.
He said Reform would signal that Britain was taking a tougher stand against Islamist extremist activity. “There are an increasing number of entities able to establish themselves in London, because we don't act in a robust, clear way. We simply don't shut them down.”
Alongside this, Mr Tice said the UK also needs a wholesale rejuvenation of its Middle East policy that might include joint listings between the London Stock Exchange and Dubai’s financial hub. He said the two countries could “do great things together”.
The British political establishment is now taking far greater notice of Reform’s positions given that the party has held a significant lead in the polls for almost a year, at around 30 per cent. The sustained rise raises the possibility that Mr Farage could become the next prime minister.
Reform has also proven a major disruptive force in British politics, its forerunners having been central to the Brexit vote and pushing successive governments to take a much harder line on immigration. One of the proposals Mr Tice currently champions is deporting illegal immigrants to either Rwanda or “another third country” to achieve its net-zero immigration target.
Mr Tice is a millionaire businessman and the grandson of Bernard Sunley, whose company built the UAE’s pioneering major skyscraper, the Dubai World Trade Centre, completed in 1979. He is strongly pro-business and a hardline Brexiteer who stepped aside as leader of Reform to allow Mr Farage to take over in 2024.
His opening remarks are straight to the point on how Britain would conduct itself on the global stage with a Reform government.
“We need to be trusted and admired and we need to be seen as strong,” he told The National. “That means having a respected military capability, a respected diplomatic capability and a foreign office that is not weak, cowardly and insipid, and views ‘commerce’ as a dirty word.”
Brotherhood ban
He is also unapologetic on the issue of designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group in the UK. He sees it as an Islamist organisation that radicalises people and which is banned in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
“They are a terror group and it's a sign of strength that we're not going to be messed around with by extreme Islamist groups who try to subvert our democracy, launder funds and promote anti-Semitic hatred."
In comments reflecting the Donald Trump's Maga worldview, he accused the British establishment of “cowardice” for continuing to rely on “soft power” in the hope circumstances might change.
“We look ridiculous on the world stage under this government, so in a Reform government, I'm telling you, it all changes,” he warned, speaking in the House of Commons.
Mr Tice, wearing a large Union Flag on his lapel, has also raised in parliament the Brotherhood’s alleged activities in Sudan’s civil war, suggesting that, “from the information that I’ve seen”, it wants to “destabilise regimes for nefarious reasons”.
Rwanda resurrected
With waves of both legal and illegal migration causing disquiet among many British communities, Reform’s populist and hardline approach has played a major role in its polling lead while also influencing government policy.
Its message to the roughly 40,000 people who cross the English Channel each year was clear: “We will detain and immediately deport anybody who breaks into our country illegally.”
He insisted this would happen even if it meant returning people to “difficult environments, whether it be Syria or Afghanistan”. He said it was not the government’s job “to worry about every rogue element out there”.
The previous Conservative government’s plan to deport illegal migrants to Rwanda was never realised, despite it costing £715 million, but Mr Tice said the policy could be revived.
“We're looking across the whole gamut of returning to people to their country of origin and a range of third-party locations.”
Unlike the failed Conservative scheme under which just four migrants were sent voluntarily to Rwanda, he promised deportations within two weeks of taking power. He said this would “save a whole load of money” currently spent on accommodation for asylum seekers.
Gulf opportunities
Mr Tice also said Britain’s approach to Gulf states would be markedly different, with the “quality of the relationship” raised to “the highest level”.
While Britain needed to build on major UAE investments in the UK, he said there were “huge opportunities both ways”.
But he wanted the “opposite” as well, with many Gulf countries developing stronger business links with the UK, and he raised the prospect of joint listings between the UAE’s exchanges and the London Stock Exchange.
“Could we have joint IPOs?” he asked, which would pair London’s “deep, trusted pools of liquidity” with the UAE’s growing financial services sector. “There could be great things to do together.”
'Wet and feeble'
Mr Tice criticised what he described as the West’s “nicey, nicey, wet and feeble” approach to Iran, including the 2015 nuclear agreement. “The nonsense that we must be nice to them and talk to them, how's that gone the last decade folks? Not very well, right?”
A Reform government, he said, would be “happy to work” with Israel and the US to confront the regime and would have proscribed Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terror group a long time ago.
The party has condemned the UK’s recognition of a Palestinian state, and Mr Tice also argued that pursuit of a two-state solution had “emboldened Hamas and harmed the peace process”. He called that a “complete red herring to the real issue”.
“The only way to securing an enduring peace in Gaza and getting it rebuilt is by getting rid of Hamas, and you'll never get peace and reinvestment into Gaza until that is solved,” he added.
Relations with Mr Trump have previously been strong, particularly given Mr Farage’s personal friendship with the US President, though Mr Tice said proposals such as annexing Greenland, comments about allied troops in Afghanistan and ICE immigration shootings were “the wrong approach”.
Still, he added that there were always “bumps in the road in politics, but the relationship remains strong”.
Mr Tice also rejected accusations that Reform was pro-Russia, saying the party had supported Ukraine “from the get go” and describing Moscow as a “monstrous aggressor”.
His remarks give insight into how a Reform-led Britain would seek to recast itself as tougher and more transactional, while the party would continue its unapologetic disruption, potentially on the world stage.
