Richard Tice must be sick of finger sandwiches. In the last few months, Reform UK’s deputy leader has ramped up his meetings with Big Business, openDemocracy can reveal, spending one or two mornings each week getting together with industry leaders at roundtable breakfast events facilitated by lobbying firms.
This campaign has several aims, not least to get businesses developing Reform’s future manifesto. The party believes it has the votes needed to win at the 2029 election – or, it says, even sooner – but it doesn’t yet have the policies or the people needed to govern. That’s where Tice comes in; he’s asked businesses to detail their policy ideas in written submissions of no more than three pages, openDemocracy understands.
Big Finance looks particularly set to benefit from this engagement. Like Labour and the Conservatives before it, Reform has promised a bonfire of regulations aimed at further unleashing the economic might of the financial sector.
