Reform UK's deputy leader Richard Tice is conducting a 'bacon and eggs' charm offensive to woo British businesses ahead of the next election.

Tice told The Mail on Sunday that he and other senior party figures, including leader Nigel Farage, had been meeting 'dozens and dozens and dozens' of bosses for breakfast meetings.

He said they included chief executives, finance chiefs, chairmen and top lobbyists at FTSE 100 and FTSE 250-listed firms, as well as those at private and foreign-owned companies.

It echoes the 'smoked salmon and scrambled eggs' charm offensive by Labour ahead of the last General Election.

Tice, pictured with Farage, said the 'penny dropped' for many firms about Reform's potential to form the next government after its landslide success in May's local elections and taking a 14-point lead in the latest national opinion poll.

And he dismissed concerns raised by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) about whether Reform's sums added up, dismissing the respected economic think-tank as 'the institute for feeble studies'.

Tice said: 'Lots of companies recognise we are a serious contender to be the next government, whenever the election is. They are taking it seriously, so want to meet me and understand where we're coming from on a variety of big issues.

'Whether you want to call it the bacon and eggs offensive or whatever, a series of breakfasts and other meetings are going on, and it is going well, and we're doing quite a lot of it.'

A well-placed City source who alerted The Mail on Sunday to the meetings suggested there was some scepticism among business leaders about Reform's plans. Firms contacted by this newspaper were tight-lipped over whether they had met Tice.

One FTSE 100 director, who asked not to be named, said he had 'not seen him' as part of the drive, but had once bumped into the politician and 'couldn't find anything we could agree on'.

However, Tice said the reaction had been positive, particularly relating to plans to scrap the net zero carbon climate goal.

'We understand the language of business,' he said. 'I was chief executive of a billion-pound multinational listed company. Nigel's a businessman. We understand what it takes to save the British economy.

'We are talking about our dead seriousness about scrapping net zero and that is greeted with almost universal joy on a private basis. Privately, they all admit it's bonkers, it's costing them a fortune, it's making them uncompetitive.'

Tice said Reform had told oil and gas companies to prepare applications for drilling licences in the North Sea 'so they can be checked and pre-approved before an election and rubber-stamped within a matter of days' if Reform were to win.

He added: 'We're not mucking about. We're very clear that things like net zero, ESG (environmental, social and governance) investing, DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) – it's all for the birds. It all goes and we will be pretty aggressive on that and anyone who tries to get in our way.'

The IFS's analysis of Reform's tax-cutting plans found that raising an individual's annual tax threshold from £12,570 to £20,000 and other measures could cost up to £80 billion a year, and that the party's strategy involved large, unspecified cuts to public services.

And Simon French, chief economist at investment bank Panmure Liberum, has warned that Britain could face an 'immediate and violent' sterling crisis if Farage wins power.

But Tice dismissed these, calling the IFS estimate a 'back-of-the-fag-packet guess' saying: 'We expect the enemy to do that.'

Asked whether business leaders were convinced by Reform's plans, Tice said: 'They get it.' He added that he and Farage were 'probably two of the most successful financial, economic, businesslike MPs they've ever met'.