Reform UK leader Richard Tice has declared war on small-town barber shops, suggesting they are nothing more than fronts for money laundering drug money.
Speaking at the party’s immigration policy launch, Tice, offering no evidence, claimed that shops have been springing up across the country that claim to offer barbering services but very rarely have anyone in them.
“How come a lot of these new barber shops have got no customers in?”, Tice asked event delegates. “How come they are all cash only?”
“I’ll tell you what the accusation is. The accusation is that these are fronts for money laundering drug money.”
The comments were made following a rant on X posted by Tice in which he bemoaned a lack of police action on the proliferation of male hair shops across the country.
“Police & Local Authorities do nothing: unaware & incompetent or aware & corrupt… or just scared”, he wrote in a post late on Wednesday.
In an earlier post, responding to a complaint about “Turkish” barbers bringing “down the tone of an area terribly”, Tice said that they were “opening all over [the] country”, adding “many fear these are fronts for money laundering drug profits”.
Reform UK is currently contesting the UK general election, set for 4 July, and polling at around 10 per cent.
Nigel Farage, who joined Tice on stage, will not be contesting the event, deciding instead to deploy his efforts Stateside.