Rice raised funds for the Euro No campaign in 2000. He was reported in early 2014 to be a donor to the UK Independence Party. In May 2016, he told "The Spectator" that he would vote for Brexit in the following month's referendum on the issue, saying "It would be good to spend one's final years as part of a truly independent nation once more." He said he had voted to remain in the European Economic Community in 1975 "from a standpoint of ignorance".