Richard Tice RELISHING election challenge - 'Let me stand against Keir Starmer - I’ll beat him hands down'

RICHARD Tice says he is the only person who can beat Keir Starmer at the next General Election.

The leader of Reform UK also reveals how he ordered his party to stand aside in 2019 so Boris Johnson could “get Brexit done”.

But in an interview with GB News, Mr Tice says the Tories have since failed and he is ready to unleash candidates across the country to take on Labour.

Speaking exclusively to Gloria De Piero he said: “We’re going to stand candidates everywhere. I’ve never said this before, but the simple fact is in 2019 we stood down. We allowed the Conservative Party to get a thumping majority in order to run the country properly, and to get Brexit done. And what have they done? They've ruined the economy. They haven't done Brexit properly. Our public services are in a state. Frankly, they've had their chance. They've blown it, they've messed up and they've made lives worse for everybody.”

Mr Tice said the right thing for the country was for the Tories to accept they couldn’t win.

“We stood down for them, so the right thing now for the country is for them to stand down, and stand aside,” he said.

“Let me stand against Keir Starmer - I will beat him hands down. They've had their chance and they've blown it. Nothing could be worse than what this Conservative Party has done to our country in recent years.”

On the preparations he is making for the next election, Mr Tice continued: “I'm standing in Hartlepool. I’ve already started canvassing there and campaigning there. We just delivered our first leaflets.

“Hartlepool is going to be a two horse race between the Labour Party and myself and we're going for it hard and I'm very confident I can win it.”

Revealing the areas he plans to target for seats he said: “As we speak, I've got about 600 seats of which we've allocated. So we are well on the way. We're being inundated with applicants to be candidates. We've had an absolute surge of members join us in recent weeks. We've had over seven and a half thousand. Literally, since Liz Trust left office.

Great parts of this country have been let down by both main parties. Labour let down those constituencies for decades and then the Tories came in. They promised to level up and they've done absolutely nothing. These are constituencies that actually benefited from the energy treasures we have under our feet, the coal, the gas, the oil. They understand what makes Britain tick and what makes Britain competitive in the manufacturing industry. They've all been let down.”

On the checks being carried out on potential candidates Mr Tice added: “We have to go through the whole vetting process. The most important thing is that candidates have a connection with the constituency. They’re either born there, they live there, or they work there. You’ve got to do this stuff, and every party always ends up with one or two horror shows. We’re doing the best we can. It’s often social media, stuff they’ve written, or said, and you have to look back a long way. So that’s what's being done. There’s a cost and process to it, but it’s important to do it.”

Watch Gloria Meets every Sunday at 6pm, only on GB News.