Reform goes to war with SEND families
Richard Tice's latest anecdote-based attack focused on children with special educational needs.
Richard Tice has decided that Britain’s SEND children are the latest convenient target in his rolling culture war. At a press conference this week, he declared that the country faces a “crisis of over-diagnosis” of neurodiverse children. He mocked the sight of pupils wearing ear defenders. He hinted darkly that middle-class parents are securing EHCPs purely to dodge VAT on school fees. It was a spectacle that told us far more about Reform UK’s political instincts than it did about the reality faced by families.
Tice did not present a single serious piece of data to support his claims. Not one. He waved at “insane” examples. He lamented that children without a diagnosis now feel “left out”. He repeated gossip about supposed parental gaming of the system. This was politics by anecdote. The sort of thing you expect to overhear at the bar during a parish council fundraiser, not at a national press conference led by a man who wants to shape education policy.
SEND families know the truth. They deal with waiting lists that stretch into years. They battle to secure assessments. They navigate a system so creaking that councils are forecasting vast deficits in high needs budgets. If anything, the system is failing children because their needs are not identified early enough. Yet Tice has decided the real problem is children wearing ear defenders in class. He speaks as if sensory overload is a lifestyle choice rather than a documented neurological issue.
None of this is out of character. Reform UK has built a brand on punchy statements that fall apart the moment anyone asks for evidence. Tice has said that net zero will “make zero difference” to climate change, as if the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change does not exist. He has repeated a claim that more migrants arrived in Britain in two years than between 1066 and 2010, a claim that was debunked immediately. He has implied widespread postal vote fraud based on the unforgettable sight of “bagloads” of votes, yet somehow cannot produce a location, a witness or a shred of proof.
This pattern matters. It reveals a party that relies on dog whistles because it cannot rely on facts. A party that frames vulnerable groups as the source of national decline. A party that expects the public to accept sweeping allegations without scrutiny. It is the politics of irritation dressed up as insight.
SEND children deserve better than to become props in Tice’s running battle with modern Britain. Their parents deserve better than to be portrayed as chancers exploiting loopholes. The country deserves better than policy shaped by hunches and anecdotes. If Reform UK wants to be taken seriously, it needs to speak to the real pressures in the SEND system. Rising demand. Insufficient funding. Patchy provision. Endless delays. All of it documented, all of it measurable.
Tice chose none of that. He chose noise over substance. That tells you everything.