New allegations at Stirling Castle dating back eight years have emerged following a string of complaints about its custodians, Historic Environment Scotland, in recent months.
Sharia law is a contentious issue in the UK. Some question whether it is compatible with so-called British values while claiming it's a separate legal system operating parallel to UK laws. In our latest De-noiser, we look at the facts.
Reform UK announced its top team this week, appointing former Tory ministers Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman to prominent roles, alongside longtime party activists Richard Tice and Zia Yusuf.
Tice, who was leader of the party for three years, until Nigel Farage took over, will be Reform’s business, trade and energy spokesman. He has been criticised for his positions on environmental issues.
On social media, people shared posts with a quote they claimed was from Tice. He allegedly said: “We will remove as many powers from Holyrood as soon as possible. We will remove environmental protections in favour of big business. We will bring back fracking in Scotland for British benefit and slash taxes for those setting up fracking operations”.
Ferret Fact Service looked at this claim and found it Unsupported.
Evidence
This alleged quote has appeared in several forms across X, Facebook and other social platforms, attributed to Richard Tice.
It does not appear to be a quote he made in a speech or public appearance and we could not find any direct source for the comments.
It is likely the quote began as a satirical attempt to sum up Tice and Reform UK’s policy positions.
Tice is on record as being a supporter of fracking, a method of extracting natural gas and oil from deep beneath the ground, where it is trapped in rock formations. In August 2025, he said: “We've got potentially hundreds of billions of energy treasure in the form of shale gas”
"It's grossly financially negligent to a criminal degree to leave that value underground and not to extract it,” he continued. Party leader Nigel Farage has also suggested the party would end the fracking ban in England and Wales if elected.
The party and Tice have also suggested they would look to scrap a series of environmental rules in order to protect jobs and business in the fossil fuel sector. Examples include the commitment to achieving ‘net zero’ emissions and “all these levies and green taxes”.
The idea that Reform aims to remove powers from the Scottish Parliament may come from some of the statements made in the past by Reform UK leader Farage, and Tice's 2021 comments about devolving power to Scottish councils. In 2011, when he was leading the UK Independence Party, he launched its Scottish Parliament election manifesto with a commitment to “replace MSPs with Scottish Westminster MPs". Richard Tice has not said he wanted to remove “as many powers from Holyrood as soon as possible”, and it is not Reform UK’s current policy.
Ferret Fact Service verdict: Unsupported
There is no evidence this quote comes from Richard Tice himself. FFS could not find any examples of this exact quote in any speeches or public appearances by Tice himself. It appears to be a made up quote based on perceptions of his and Reform UK’s policy positions.
Help us keep digging.
If this reporting mattered to you, you can help fund the next one. The Ferret is independent, member-owned investigative journalism, backed by readers who want accountability in Scotland.
Alastair leads our fact-checking arm, The Ferret Fact Service, and writes about disinformation and conspiracy theories. He also delivers training on media literacy and spotting disinformation. He spends his free time at gigs in basements.
Reform UK's Malcolm Offord claimed one million people came to the UK in the 20th century, and seven million people have come to the UK since 2000. This is not accurate.
