Richard Tice may have turned the Nigel Farage racism scandal into a legal fiasco

Reform deputy leader Richard Tice rarely passes up an opportunity to make a bad situation worse. But even by his standards, his decision to brand the man who accused Nigel Farage of antisemitic abuse as a liar with a political motive is a masterclass in self-sabotage.

Widely substantiated claims that Farage verbally abused his Dulwich College schoolmate Peter Ettedgui, who is Jewish, with taunts like “Hitler was right” and “gas them all” have been followed by the far right party slipping in some recent opinion polls.

With allegations about racist and antisemitic abuse supported by 19 other former classmates, Farage has offered only weak denials, including “have I said things 50 years ago that you could interpret as being banter in a playground that you could interpret in the modern light of day in some sort of way? Yes.”

Now a worried Reform’s tactic of sending out the volatile Tice to counter these claims risks seriously backfiring. When Emma Barnett of Radio 4’s Today programme asked Tice about the various and well-supported accusations made by Ettedgui – a Bafta- and Emmy-winning director and producer – he didn’t react with any sense of legal caution. Instead he went on a full-bore reputation-damaging attack.

Tice said the claims were “made-up twaddle by people who don’t want Nigel Farage to be prime minister… someone who has got a political motive.” He added: “I think this is made up by people who are political activists… with an axe to grind.” Challenged by Barnett, he went on to directly call Ettedgui a liar.

An astonished Barnett ended the interview prematurely – either to save Tice from himself or to limit any potential exposure of the BBC to a defamation suit against a well-respected film-maker for broadcasting such a violent attack. Or possibly just sheer disgust after Tice told her that “no-one has stood up against antisemitism more than Nigel and I.”

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The previous night, Tice told Rupert Murdoch’s online station Talk: “These are all socialists, making stuff up because they are against us being the governing party and Nigel becoming prime minister.” He also claimed, bizarrely, of Farage’s accusers that “if there are 20 of them, the polls indicate that six of them should be Reform voters”.

Tice has now opened himself up to a defamation lawsuit that he would surely lose – and then face the consequences of having to apologise to the man who called his political boss a vile racist as a schoolboy.

Labour have recognised the seriousness of Tice’s blunder. Chair Anna Turley said: “It’s utterly deplorable that Richard Tice has dismissed this and suggested they are lying, despite Farage himself refusing to offer a categorical denial and saying he couldn’t remember everything that happened at school.”

Farage may be the one accused of racism at Dulwich, but it’s Tice who’s managed to give Reform’s crisis a fresh and enticing dimension: a reckless case of defamation on the most influential radio show in the country.