Reform UK deputy leader faces inquiry over Israel visit

The September 2025 Israel trip included flights, accommodation, and hospitality organized by Reform Friends of Israel.

By Kelly Hartog, JTA

Richard Tice, the deputy leader of Britain’s right-wing Reform UK party, is under investigation by Parliament’s standards watchdog over whether he should have prefaced his remarks in a House of Commons debate on pro-Israel influence by noting that he had visited the country as a guest of a pro-Israel group.

The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards opened the inquiry on July 28, although it was not made public until Monday.

The inquiry concerns whether Tice should have made an oral declaration that he had taken a September 2025 trip to Israel sponsored by Reform Friends of Israel before speaking in the June 22 debate.

The trip had already been recorded in Parliament’s Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

Tice has rejected the complaint, arguing that it stems from his opposition to what he described as antisemitic claims about Israeli influence in British politics.

“I am being investigated for standing against antisemitism. You could not make it up,” he wrote Monday on X.

Tice also alleged in the post, without identifying the complainant, that the complaint had been submitted by an “antisemitic anti-Israel lobby group.”

The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards does not disclose the identity of complainants while investigations are underway, and no organization has publicly claimed responsibility for filing the complaint.

The September 2025 Israel trip included flights, accommodation, and hospitality organized by Reform Friends of Israel, a group that works with election candidates and other Reform UK party officials to promote UK-Israel relations.

The parliamentary commissioner is examining whether parliamentary rules required Tice to verbally mention that fact before participating in the June 22 debate.

The debate took place following a public petition that garnered over 100,000 signatures, the threshold required for parliamentary consideration, calling for an inquiry into what organizers described as “pro-Israel influence.”

During the debate, Tice rejected the petition’s premise, calling it “antisemitic in its very motivation and at its core.”

He also said that allegations of undue Jewish or Israeli influence echoed “the oldest antisemitic trope in the book” and defended the role of parliamentary friendship groups such as Conservative Friends of Israel and Labour Friends of Israel.

“We should celebrate the extraordinary genius and impact of Israeli scientists, entrepreneurs, and people specializing in medical research and AI applications, the work they do, and the innovation they create, whether they are in the State of Israel or living somewhere else, such as London,” Tice said during the debate.

He also welcomed then-Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s efforts to tackle antisemitism within the Labour Party and argued that Parliament should reject claims that Jewish organizations or supporters of Israel exercise improper influence over British politics.

In his X post, Tice also claimed that the same group behind the complaint had not requested an investigation into independent MP Ayoub Khan over what he alleged was Khan’s failure to declare a donation from a pro-Palestinian organization.

Tice did not identify either the complainant or the organization, and Khan has not responded to the accusation.