Richard Tice

Tice is a Eurosceptic. He was a director of the campaign group, Business for Sterling.[14] It campaigned for the United Kingdom not to join the Euro currency in the late 1990s.[15] Tice donated £1,750 to Eurosceptic MP David Davis' candidacy in the 2001 Conservative Party leadership election.[16]

In July 2015, Tice co-founded, with businessman Arron Banks, the pro-Brexit Leave.EU campaign group. It was originally known as The Know.EU before being rebranded in September of that year as Leave.EU.[17][18][19] He also donated £38,000 to pro-Brexit campaign group Grassroots Out.[20][21][22] Shortly after the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union in the June 2016 referendum, he left Leave.EU, and co-founded the pressure group Leave Means Leave.[23] He co-chairs it with the businessman John Longworth. In October 2017, they were placed jointly at Number 90 on Iain Dale's list of the "Top 100 Most Influential People on the Right".[24]

Tice, Arron Banks, Andy Wigmore, Nigel Farage are sometimes referred to by sections of the media as the 'Bad Boys of Brexit', a group who facilitated Brexit.[25][26][27] He has written a number of articles advocating for a No-deal Brexit.[28] Tice was the first to use the phrase, 'no deal is better than a bad deal' in relation to Brexit in July 2016 which would later be used in then Prime Minister Theresa May's Lancaster House speech outlining the government's approach to negotiations in January 2017.[29][30]

He is the chairman of the Brexit Party, a Eurosceptic political party which participated in the 2019 European parliamentary election and the 2019 U.K. general election.[31] The Brexit Party was formed as an incorporated limited company on 23 Nov 2018, and Tice was appointed a director of it on 8 May 2019.[32] In the election, it won 29 seats in the European Parliament.[33] Tice also stood as a candidate. He was first on his party's list, and was elected as one of three of its MEPs in the East of England constituency.[34] In the European Parliament, he was a member of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, and was part of the delegation for relations with Canada.[1] Prior to joining the Brexit Party, he was a long term donor, and member of the Conservative Party.[35] In November 2019, it was announced that he would stand as the Brexit Party candidate in Hartlepool in the 2019 general election.[36] Tice came third in Hartlepool with 25.8% of the vote.[37]

Tice has been a member of the governing body of Northampton Academy in Northampton since 2004, and is also the vice chair of trustees at the independent Uppingham School.[9][38] He wrote a 2008 report for the think tank Reform called 'Academies: A model education?'.[6] In 2017, Tice co-wrote a pamphlet for the think tank UK 2020, 'Timebomb: how the university cartel is failing Britain's students', which included recommendations on how to expand two-year degrees.[39] Tice produced a follow-up report on student finances called 'Defusing the debt timebomb' which he sent to the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond.[40]

A long-time contributor to the magazine Property Week, Tice is a regular commentator on developments within the property world.[41] In a May 2018 article on the Conservative Home website, Tice argued for the importance of expanding the availability of homes for people on lower incomes and how this could be achieved more effectively. He felt that crime could also be reduced if housing was better managed.[42]