Richard Tice joked on GB News that the Home Secretary would have to go through the “usual vetting process” after he suggested Shabana Mahmood was “speaking the language of Reform”.

Olivia Utley asked whether he would welcome Shabana Mahmood to his party, to which Mr Tice laughed: “Well, obviously she’d have to go through the usual vetting process.

“But people have got to believe in our principles and our values. That’s the key thing. And I think that’s why people are coming over to us.

“They’re furious about what’s happening to our country.”

During the conference on Monday, Mr Tice playfully jibed that Ms Mahmood is “putting an application for vetting to join Reform” over her planned asylum system reforms.

The deputy chief said she has not got the “support and confidence” of Labour MPs on the proposals, adding that she is “talking the language of concerned Reform voters”.

Speaking to crowds, he said: “With regards to the Home Secretary, she is beginning to sound as though she is putting an application for vetting to join Reform.

“The reality is, however well intentioned the Home Secretary is, a) she has not got the support and confidence of her own party, but b) while still being a member of the European Convention on Human Rights and still having the Human Right Act in its current form, she just won’t be able to deliver what she is talking about.”

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