Union Boss Condemns Richard Tice's 'Nonsensical' Plan To Stuff Civil Service With Reform Supporters

A trade union boss has hit out at Richard Tice’s plan to fill the civil service with Reform UK supporters if it wins the next election.

The party’s deputy leader said the would set up an immigration “department of believers” to remove the UK from the European Convention on Human Rights.

He said a Reform government would expect civil servants to “get stuck in or, frankly, in the nicest possible way, go and get a job somewhere else because it’s not going to end well”.

Whitehall officials are supposed to be politically neutral to they can give impartial advice to ministers, who then have to make the final decision on policy.

But Tice said he wanted them to be people who “believe in the cause of secure borders”.

Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA union, which represents senior civil servants, condemned Tice’s comments.

Speaking on LBC, he said: “The idea that the reason why the Home Office has not been successful is because it’s not staffed with believers is clearly nonsense.

“If that had been the case and they had all been Labour supporters under the Conservatives, when Labour came in it would have solved it because all the civil servants would be supporting the Labour Party policies.

“Richard Tice is talking about setting up a department for immigration. There’s 10,000 staff work in the Border Force alone, never mind the other staff that are working on immigration issues.

“Is he really saying that a Reform government would come in and sack 20,000 civil servants and recruit 20,000 more, test them for their belief in Reform policies? How would you do that? A lie detector or a multiple choice question on the policy of the Reform party?

“Are they going to do that elsewhere in the civil service? It’s a completely impractical way to think about the problems.”