Keir Starmer delivered a searing attack on Richard Tice after the Reform man called on the prime minister to resign in the wake of the Belfast knife attack.
During Wednesday’s prime minister’s questions, Tice stood up to claim that Starmer was “in denial of the rising despair across the country over his failure to stop the boats.”
The comment came in the wake of the knife attack in Belfast on Monday night, in which a man suffered serious injuries to his face and neck.
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A Sudanese man, 30-year-old Hadi Alodid, has been arrested and charged with attempted murder, threats to kill an NHS radiographer and possession of a knife over the alleged attack.
Alodid had arrived in the UK in 2023 and was granted refugee status.
Reform and far-right figures such as Elon Musk and Tommy Robinson have been quick to jump on this, just as they were after Henry Nowak’s death last week.
Tice continued, accusing Starmer of failing to recognise “two-tier policing” and failure over Peter Mandelson and dealing with anti-semitism in Britain.
He concluded: “When will he do the right thing and resign?”
In response, Starmer hit out at Tice and his party for once again “whipping up fear and division” with their response to a horrific event.
He then issued a reminder to Tice about his ‘aggressive tax avoidance’, a story that seems to have been forgotten since it broke earlier this year.
“He talks about stopping the boats – to take those measures you need money and he has still not properly addressed why his companies aggressively avoided tax,” Starmer said.
“HIs investment company then gave huge donations to Reform. If he paid his tax we’d have more money to deal with these issues.”
You can read what we had to say about Tice’s tax controversy here.