A ‘UK FIRST’ CONSERVATIVE PARTY COULD SEE OFF REFORM, SAYS BEN HABIB

Former Reform Deputy Leader Ben Habib has said Kemi Badenoch has the opportunity to echo Donald Trump’s success with a ‘UK first’ agenda.

Speaking on GB News Ben Habib said:

“It’s interesting. Starmer, in addition to irritating Donald Trump, also irritated Elon Musk, because he refused to invite him to that meeting where they had to make good of the corporate world and how they were going to drive British investment forward.

“And they shunned him. And of course, he’s not going to take kindly to that.

“But I think what is terrific about the change in presidency in the United States is that we now have, for the first time in any major western country, a president who is more for democracy than he is for liberalism, who stands against rampant immigration, who stands for deregulation and for cutting taxes.

“That goes against the grain of the entire form of governance that we’ve had since Tony Blair came to office for the last 27 odd years, including Conservative parties.

“And I think what Musk is driving at, and which I think, I hope, this country will be a massive beneficiary, is a change of direction, so that we start putting the United Kingdom first the way Trump keeps saying he’s going to put the US first.

“And the only way, by the way, that we can now succeed as a country with the US putting itself first, is if we do the same as the US, we put ourselves first.

“Deregulate, cut taxes, or we will lose all our capital. We’ll lose all our intellect. Businesses that otherwise will have come to the United Kingdom, they’ll go to the US.

“So the narrative is going to change, and the challenge to the Conservative Party and to Nigel Farage the Reform UK party is, who’s going to carry the mantle for the delivery of that new form of governance?

“So this isn’t Elon Musk interfering in an electoral process. Barack Obama came here in the run up to the referendum and was telling us that we would be at the back of the queue, an expression he would never have used if Cameron hadn’t planted it in his mind.

“He was interfering in a referendum, and the Labour Party has form again for this. If they hadn’t already irritated Donald Trump enough, they sent a whole cohort over to the US to campaign for the Democrats.

“But the other thing just to highlight here, is that somehow Musk has painted Donald Trump has successfully painted himself as anti-establishment. Of course, he stood for the Republican Party.

“Now can Kemi reinvent the Conservative party to the extent necessary to paint herself as the opposition effectively, to the way Western governance has taken place for the last 20-30 odd years?

“And that’s going to be the challenge for the Conservative Party. Can it go to being a nationist party to the extent required to see off Reform and deliver the narrative itself?