BBC viewers have been left fuming with the appearance of Reform UK leader Richard Tice on Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg.
Tice has come in for fierce criticism on social media for a number of comments he made while on the show.
We previously told how he clashed with Unison general secretary Christina McAnea on a range of issues including culture wars and public sector spending.
Speaking about Nigel Farage, Tice said the former Ukip leader would be “furious” about immigration numbers and said: “I rather like the idea of president Farage. Maybe you could have president Farage and president (Donald) Trump.
Richard Tice(Reform): Farage will be absolutely furious about these immigration numbers.. & it's making us poorer culturally Christina McAnea(Unison): I don't even know what that means.. it's appalling to turn things into a culture war.. it's harking back to the 40s#bbclaurak pic.twitter.com/e73BKHKgXS
— Haggis_UK 🇬🇧 🇪🇺 (@Haggis_UK) November 26, 2023
“That would wind a few people up.”
Elsewhere on the programme, he said: “These huge mass immigration numbers are changing the nature of our country, it’s making us poorer financially and it’s making us poorer culturally.”
When pressed on what he meant by this, he said: “I think that sense of Britishness. Who we are, our heritage, our history, our Christian values and ethos. That is the base of our single British culture and that is what we want people to unify under.”
Many took to Twitter/X to slam Rice for his comments, with political commentator Gerry Hassan noting: “Richard Tice, front man for Farage, shows his true colours supporting the election of president Trump.
“Immigration he says makes the UK ‘culturally poorer’ & undermines ‘the British way of life’. #BBC & #BBClaurak again profiling a party which has never won a parliamentary seat.”
Another user said Tice was trying to “dog-whistle” his way through the programme and praised McAnea for challenging him.
A third described the appearance as “creepy” and added: “The force feeding of ‘Britishness’ on people is hacking me off. ‘Single British culture.’ Where does one start?”
A fourth again questioned Tice’s appearance, saying “it’s frightening that he’s given a forum for this”.
Elsewhere, another social media user described him as a “xenophobic, populist numpty” while somebody else posted an image of McAnea’s shocked reaction to Tice’s comments and said: “The face of total incredulity that captures the mood of the nation as Richard Tice is given a platform to spout more nonsense to stoke his beloved #Culturewars.”
