Richard Tice is the deputy of Reform UK, and do you know what really winds him up? The idea that people of faith might want to acknowledge and learn from the horrors of the past.

We’d like to say this is unexpected, but Tice was promoting an alleged human trafficker a few weeks ago, so it really isn’t.

Did you thank Jesus for giving great courage and vision to the British for abolishing the slave trade, spending vast amounts of money and sacrificing brave Royal Naval sailors in the process?

As a Christian, you don’t speak for me, nor millions of other Christians in the UK… https://t.co/21mO5eW5jf

— Richard Tice MP (@TiceRichard) August 1, 2026

Richard Tice. Nickname: Mr Offended

In full, this is what Sarah Mullally, the Archbishop of Canterbury, said in her post:

Today I visited Cape Coast Castle. Seeing the horrific conditions that thousands of people were kept in, it is impossible not to feel the weight of the immense evil that drove the transatlantic slave trade.

I pray not only in lament for the Church’s involvement in the slave trade, but also for hope – hope that the God of healing can bring justice and reconciliation to all who are still impacted by its legacy.

In the name of Jesus Christ, who came to set people free, I pray that we have the courage to continue our journey of repentance, and to strive for a world in which all of God’s children are treated with dignity.

And this is how Tice responded:

Did you thank Jesus for giving great courage and vision to the British for abolishing the slave trade, spending vast amounts of money and sacrificing brave Royal Naval sailors in the process?

As a Christian, you don’t speak for me, nor millions of other Christians in the UK

Why should we donate to the Church of England for you to waste it on woke virtue signalling?

If you’re confused as to what Tice is so upset about, it’s presumably the idea that anyone should feel repentant about the past.

Guilt can be an unproductive emotion in that it encourages defensiveness, but Mullally clearly isn’t urging her followers to be overwhelmed by the feeling. In her message, she acknowledges the evils of the past, and argues that there’s hope to be taken from the journey society has taken, even though there is more yet to be done.

To some, this is the essence of Jesus’s teachings, in that it encompasses redemption, loving your neighbours, etc. For people like Tice, however, the essence of Christianity is moaning about literally everything, and mistrusting everyone outside your immediate family.

There’s so much hypocrisy in his reply

There’s a couple of other things to note about Tice’s response, starting with this:

Did you thank Jesus for giving great courage and vision to the British for abolishing the slave trade, spending vast amounts of money…

Speaking on how Britain ‘abolished’ the slave trade, Maddison Wheeldon wrote for the Canary:

Conveniently, Braverman makes no mention of what happened when the “abhorrent” slave trade and, later, slavery itself were abolished. It wasn’t the enslaved who were compensated – it was the slave owners. They received such vast sums to cover their supposed financial “losses” that the British government borrowed heavily to fund the payouts.

The debt from that borrowing was paid off by taxpayers for generations, with the final payments only being completed in 2015. Thus, ordinary people effectively spent almost two centuries paying to compensate slave owners, while enslaved people received nothing.

If nothing else, we should be aware of our past to prevent it happening again. Whether you feel guilt about the past is up to you, but if we don’t learn from our mistakes, we will have plenty to regret in the present.

As noted, Tice recently promoted a post from Andrew Tate, who has been charged with three counts of arranging or facilitating trafficking for sexual exploitation, alongside several other charges for unforgivable offences.

To align himself with someone like that suggests that Tice’s objections to the Archbishop stem from a lax attitude towards human rights and not her framing of the matter.

Reform’s downfall

As we’ve reported elsewhere, we’re not particularly optimistic Andy Burnham will change this country’s fortunes. At the same time, it is nice to see Reform sliding down the opinion polls.

Yet another opinion poll this week that puts Reform several points behind https://t.co/YIvAaUjJEg

— dave lawrence (@dave43law) August 1, 2026

Partially, this is down to the ‘Burnham bounce’. At the same time, it seems the more people see of Reform, they less they trust the party. And with posts like the above from Tice, it’s not hard to see why.

Featured image via Louise Haywood-Schiefer

By Willem Moore

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