{"id":775684,"date":"2026-09-19T10:38:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T10:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/775684\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T10:38:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T10:38:09","slug":"richard-tice-accuses-sarah-cooper-lesadd-of-lying-about-her-beliefs-before-switching-from-reform-uk-to-plaid-cymru","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/775684\/","title":{"rendered":"Richard Tice accuses Sarah Cooper-Lesadd of ‘lying about her beliefs’ before switching from Reform UK to Plaid Cymru"},"content":{"rendered":"

When asked how she had got through the vetting process as a Remain voter, Tice said: “If someone deliberately misleads you, and fibs to you, and lies to you, then it doesn’t matter how much vetting you do.<\/p>\n

“So, why don’t you ask her that question? How can you turn from being a unionist to a separatist?<\/p>\n

“How can you turn from being someone who believes in defending our borders to want to open the borders and become a nation of sanctuary? The whole thing’s absurd,” he told BBC Radio Wales Sunday Supplement. <\/a><\/p>\n

“I’m not in charge of vetting. Look, we make lots of brilliant, fast-moving decisions and judgements.<\/p>\n

“That’s why we’ve grown to be the second-largest party in Wales so quickly from a standing start. We never claim that we’re perfect. You know, we’re real people.”<\/p>\n

Tice refused to confirm whether Helen Jenner would take over from Thomas <\/a>next week other than to say that whoever becomes leader will get the seal of approval from him and the UK leader Nigel Farage.<\/p>\n

Thomas, who was released on bail after his arrest, stood down saying he had done nothing wrong but did not want to be a distraction to the party.<\/p>\n

He has not been suspended from the party<\/a> – which would have effectively left him as an independent MS – while Gwent Police continues its investigation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When asked how she had got through the vetting process as a Remain voter, Tice said: “If someone…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":775685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-775684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=775684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/775685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=775684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=775684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=775684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}