British MP probed for not disclosing Israel trip in speech

The deputy leader of Nigel Farrage’s Reform UK party, MP Richard Tice, is the subject of a parliamentary ethics investigation because he did not mention during a speech he’d made in parliament about antisemitism that he’d been on a sponsored visit to Israel, he said on Monday.

Tice spoke in Westminster Hall in June during a debate framed as being about “pro-Israel influence” in the United Kingdom and argued that the title of the discussion was antisemitic, The Telegraph reported.

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Daniel Greenberg, the standards commissioner, who is Jewish, confirmed on the website of the parliamentary standards commissioner that an investigation into Tice’s alleged “failure to declare an interest” was underway.

The investigation concerns a potential breach of rule six of the House of Commons code of conduct, which states: “Members must always be open and frank in declaring any relevant interest in any proceeding of the House or its committees, and in any communications with ministers, members, public officials or public office-holders.”

Reform Friends of Israel Ltd, a campaign group set up by Reform supporters, paid some 6,225 British pounds ($8,365) for the trip in September, according to the report. Tice had declared the trip in October, but did not mention it in speaking against the framing of the debate on “pro-Israel influence,” initiated by lawmakers hostile to Israel, according to the newspaper.

“Contrary to garbage in media: I am being investigated for standing against antisemitism. You could not make it up,” Tice wrote on X. The complaint against him to the Standards Commissioner came from an “antisemitic anti-Israel lobby group,” he added.

Mark Simpson, a Member of the Scottish Parliament representing Reform UK, defended Tice on X and said the probe was part of an attempt to delegitimize Reform UK, a right-wing party that’s critical of the political establishment and immigration policies that have brought millions of Muslims into Britain.

“It’s so obvious the establishment are trying to use every trick in the book to smear us – fortunately people see through it now and simply do not pay attention,” Simpson wrote.

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