What Comes Next？ ｜ Interview with Ben Habib
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Summary
Ben Habib joins me on holiday to discuss what's happening with Nigel Farage, Rupert Lowe and the Reform Party, and the future of the right wing in Britain more broadly. We also discuss why the idea of a 'proper' political party is so important, and why it needs to be democratised.
Transcript
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Hi folks, I have the pleasure of being joined by Ben Habib via Zoom when he's on holiday
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to discuss what's happening with Nigel Farage, Rupert Lowe and the Reform Party and the future
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of the right wing in Britain more broadly. Because actually a lot is up in the air at the moment and
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it's revealing a lot of cockroaches that are currently scurrying for cover and actually I
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would rather address them and deal with the issues so we can have something a little more
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wholesome moving forward because one of the things that we have recently seen revealed is that
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well the allegations against Rupert Lowe actually seem not to be against Rupert Lowe and so Reform
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kicking him out and saying he'll never be welcomed back because he was mildly and constructively
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critical of Reform and the position that they're in seems to be part of a pattern of behavior,
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a long-standing pattern of behavior that Nigel Farage has demonstrated where he mercilessly
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crushes anyone who he feels may be a popular threat to him and his way of doing things which
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I think is actually not a very wholesome and healthy way of approaching any kind of political
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activity. I would personally much rather a cooperative and collaborative way of doing politics and I
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think that Ben probably agrees with me on that. How are you Ben? I'm very well thank you Carl and good
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to see you and I agree with you 100%. I mean it doesn't really seem to bear any
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thinking about it. Why wouldn't we want a large collection of talented, confident, happy people
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dealing with one another openly and honestly rather than, you know what's weird? Like someone
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earlier today said that this seems to be like this the plot of Dune playing out as if Nigel Farage
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represents sort of House Harkonnen and the tradies on the other side saying well can't we just
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be good? Can't we be decent? What's your impression of all of this been so far?
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So I haven't watched Dune but you know it's a sort of it's Nigel, where do I start? So let me go
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right to the nub of the issue I think and it's this Nigel is a narcissist. I don't like to make ad hominem
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attacks but when a man controls the political party, when he makes himself the centre of attention,
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doesn't allow anyone else to come forward, crushes anyone that actually could share the limelight with
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him and in order to deliver the country to safety. You would need a team of Samson, you know, and they
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would have to share the limelight with him. Indeed he should be encouraging people who are better than
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him to join the party. That's what a proper leader would do. But he crushes anyone who comes close to
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rivaling him for media attention. And so when you've got a narcissist in total control of the nation's hopes,
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you're in for a bumpy ride. And that's why I was arguing so vehemently for democratisation.
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It wasn't to set Nigel out of the party, but it was to make sure that there were checks and balances
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and processes within the party that would enable the great minds of our movement, and I count you as
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one of those Carl, if I may say so, to actually be heard by the leadership and for your voice to be
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entertained, not dismissed. At the moment, because it's the Nigel Farage controlled party,
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the only thing anyone can do, and Rupert tried it, is to plead with Nigel, say, please, Nigel,
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please do this. And if Nigel doesn't want to do it, and as was the case with Rupert, he didn't even
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meet Rupert. He didn't meet him for months. Rupert was pleading for a meeting and Nigel wouldn't meet
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him. He didn't have to because he controls the party. And inevitably, it was going to end up in
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a bust up. So when you've got a strong character like Nigel, a narcissist like Nigel, it's not,
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I mean, it's not beyond the realms of possibility that you can make that work for the country,
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but he needs to have checks and balances around him that keep him with it on the straight and narrow.
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And Nigel has completely shirked that. He says he's democratized the party. He hasn't.
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It's in his total control. And he is going about doing huge damage to the hopes and aspirations of
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the country. Because even if somehow, by the way, you know, Carl, even if somehow he can keep his
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high polls rating, and he can be part of a future government, he won't have the people around him
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that can articulate the policies, enact the policies, drive those policies through that are
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so required to save our country. And so it'll be the whole thing will be a pointless exercise.
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So Rupert was absolutely right to call Nigel out. And if you don't mind me saying so, so was I.
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I did the same. Absolutely. Absolutely right to call him out. And this is the time to call him out,
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because we have got for just over four years before the general election. And I'm glad that
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it's happened sooner rather than later. I thought I was going to be a voice in the wilderness, but this
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has now become the center, you know, mainstream debate. And the people like you and me and others
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need to really drive this debate to its natural conclusion, and make sure that we emerge from it
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with some kind of coherent voice for the colloquial right wing. I don't think I'm right wing. I mean,
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I think I'm just pro British. But you know, yeah, you know what I mean?
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Yeah, there's no point quibbling over the labels at this point.
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I know. I know. I know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think I think you're exactly
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on the money here. And I find myself drawing comparisons to different styles of politics.
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And I just find it bizarre that Nigel has chosen a very rigid and formalized and insecure form of
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politics. So there are ways of managing groups of people in democratic and also autocratic ways
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that are not nearly as fragile as the way Nigel Farage has pointed out. So one one good example
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of this from history, I think, would be Louis XIV with the Palace of Versailles. What he would do is
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bring his aristocrats to Versailles and make them compete with one another for his attention.
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And this meant that his position was actually very secure. And so he wasn't in danger of them
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overthrowing him or anything like this. Whereas Nigel Farage appears to have taken a very much an ivory
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tower mentality where he and very few viziers around him are in complete control of everything.
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Like Zia Yusuf is at the moment acting like some sort of hatchet man, the grand vizier to Nigel Farage,
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his sultanate. But the thing is, in this sort of Ottoman sense of the sultanate, that's actually a very
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fragile political machine. Because if the vizier decides to bump off the sultan one day, the sultan has
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no allies to come and call upon. And so there's no one he can lean into. Whereas Louis XIV would have
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said, well, no, I've got a dozen other nobles I can go to for support if three or four are planning
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to kill me. The sultan can do nothing like that because everything is directly underneath him and
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geared in such a way that no one is allowed to disagree with him. No one is allowed to speak out
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against him. And so if you're surrounded by fawning yes men, well, you'll be surrounded by the
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fawning yes men until they drive the knife into your back and you'll never hear a contrary opinion.
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Fawning yes men are basically fundamentally flawed human beings. They don't have courage. And so when
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they sense the change in winds, they'll be the first to drive the knife into you. And I think the
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analogy that you've given, the historical analogy is absolutely spot on. And there's a human element
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to this as well, Carl, isn't there? That if you surround yourself with viziers who are at least
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having the opportunity to air their points of view, have the debate, therapeutically,
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they're going to feel that they've done their bit. And Nigel couldn't, Rupert couldn't even get
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close to Nigel. He couldn't get in his ear. He kept saying, come and talk to me. Nigel wouldn't
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talk to him. And let me just say this, in my own personal experience, Nigel appointed himself leader
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on the 3rd of June 2024. I was deputy leader. I was not forewarned about Nigel coming back as a leader.
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Forget about having any discussion with him. I wasn't even told that he was coming back as leader.
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I discovered in that afternoon at the press conference that he was now a leader. And
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throughout the general election, I didn't want to speak to Nigel. In fact, I haven't once spoken to
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Nigel since he came back as leader. We've had some texts, some of which have been frankly abusive from
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him. And there's been no correspondence. So I knew straight away when he came back
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that things were going to be problematic. Nigel and I, this isn't about me, but I'm just going
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to say this if I may. Nigel and I are ideologically at odds. And we have been ideologically at odds
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for a long, long time. And if I had known that Nigel was coming back into lead reform,
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I would never have joined reform. I had the firm impression that Nigel wanted to make money. In fact,
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he's not a firm impression. He told me that. I had dinner with him in 2020. Rupert Lowe,
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it's really amusing, actually. Now that what's happened to Rupert, it makes this dinner really
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interesting. So it was in August 2020, when lockdowns had been temporarily removed. Rupert Lowe,
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Robert Rowland, who's now sadly died, a very good man, would have been on our side in all of this,
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took Nigel out for dinner. We said, look, Nigel, Brexit is not done. Boris Johnson has to negotiate
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what subsequently became the trade and cooperation agreement. We need you back in the field. We need
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you fighting to get a proper Brexit. Because at the heart of breaking from the liberal global order,
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the first step of that was to break away from the EU properly. You know, anyone who cared about
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this country knew we had to leave the EU properly. And Nigel turned on me at supper, very expensive
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supper at the art club in London. It cost me, I think, 700 quid or something for three of us. You know,
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cigars, top wine. I mean, I really entertained him. And I said, Nigel, what do you need to stay in
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politics? And he turned on me and he said, it's all right for you. You were born with a silver spoon
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up your ass. You know, I've had to make all my own way in life. And by the way, I wasn't born with a
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silver spoon up my ass. My father, more often than not, attended my backside with a wooden stick.
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You know, it wasn't a silver spoon. And anyway, that's by the by. But I got the firm
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impression, as I say, he declared it to me, he wanted to make money. He wanted, after 25 years of
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having what he calls serve the people, he wanted to make money. I thought, great, right, off he goes.
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That's a perfectly legitimate decision for a man to make. Go and look after your own interests.
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But then he said things like Brexit's done, and it wasn't. And then he said things like the United
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Ireland is inevitable. And then more recently, he's been saying things, you know, which I find an
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affront. I fought for Northern Ireland to come out of the EU. It's still left behind. And Nigel said,
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well, you know, who cares about Northern Ireland kind of thing? Well, if you don't, if, you know,
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this is the other thing. Sorry, I'm digressing. But if you don't know what it is that forms the
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democratic unit for which you are fighting, and in my view, that is the United Kingdom of Great
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Britain and Northern Ireland, if you can't define that as the unit for which you're fighting, frankly,
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you haven't got a joined up political philosophy. And for Nigel to say I'm pro-Brexit, without
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acknowledging the fact that Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, means he doesn't really
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know what it means to be pro-Brexit, because it means for the entire United Kingdom to come out.
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I mean, I'm perfect. Sorry, just in the interest of time.
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It's fine. Everyone does. But so, the point being, there's no reason for Nigel to behave the
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way he does, right? As far as I can tell, he could instead be a bit more collegial and just have people
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give their input without feeling threatened by the very nature of the thing. But instead, as far as I can
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tell, and Rupert Lowe and yourself are just two examples on a long list of people that he has
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deliberately shut out. But then if he was just shutting you out, then okay, that's one thing.
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But then he goes on the attack and begins what I can only describe sort of mean girl politics,
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which is character destruction, reputation destruction. And okay, well, if it's someone
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like Douglas Carswell that people don't... I mean, it's not okay, but if he's not as
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well-known on social media, perhaps, as someone like Rupert Lowe, okay, I can see how that works,
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or if it's Stephen Wolf or whoever, but okay, these are not unknown, but lesser-known people.
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And social media didn't exist then, in the way that it exists now.
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Yeah, precisely. Social media has created a large cohort of very switched on people,
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as well as well-meaning friends, you know, with lots of people who are very friendly to one another,
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because they see the virtues and the causes that they're fighting for. And so no doubt,
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had I been more aware of UKIP back in 2016, I would have had something to say about the way
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that Stephen Wolf was treated. And so for him now, in the year of our Lord 2025, to do it to
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Rupert Lowe, who appears to be almost kind of comically good, in a way, as in... I went through
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this on the podcast today. The BBC went to Great Yarmouth and interviewed people on the street.
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And the worst anyone could say about him was, well, he's not actually from here. Otherwise,
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he's brilliant. He's donating his wages to charity. He is actually fixing local concerns. Quote,
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he is the best MP Great Yarmouth has ever had. And all of the other character witnesses who have
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come out and said, well, I've known Rupert Lowe for 45 years. He's a giant teddy bear. He's been
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nothing but kind and chivalrous to everyone around him. Do you think he may have picked the wrong
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fight here? He's absolutely picked the wrong fight. Rupert Lowe is a first-class gentleman.
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And it's not that he's thought to destroy his reputation, which is the normal playbook. He's actually
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sought to destroy Rupert Lowe. You know, however frivolous the complaint to the police,
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the aim of a complaint to the police is to get someone incarcerated. That's what it is. It's a
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criminal complaint. There's no way back from that criminal complaint. There was perhaps a very
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short opportunity during which Nigel could have sacked their youth and said, I do not endorse your
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criminal complaint. By all means make it, but you do it on your own. But he didn't do it. He doubled
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down and he supported their youth. And I think it makes, I'm moving on here, but I think it makes
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any form of reconciliation impossible. You can't seek to have someone incarcerated and then put your
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arm around their shoulder and say, well, come back into the fold. They've made that clear that they don't
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want him back, even if he's found innocent. So it shows that it wasn't really about the allegations at
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all. Yeah. Yeah. So-called allegations, because actually the allegations, there weren't any real
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allegations. You know, there's no allegation of bullying against Rupert. That's against other people.
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It just happened to happen in Rupert's office, nothing to do with Rupert. So that's the first one
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dispensed of. And then the second one is, you know, he threatened Zaire Youssef apparently with
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physical violence, verbally threatened him with physical violence. Well, isn't reform the singular
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entity that bangs on about people being, you know, slightly more stiff upper lip when it comes to being
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offended with words. And even if I said to you, you know, if I said to you, Carl, I wouldn't because
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you, you know, you'd hit me harder than I could hit you. But if I said to you, I'm going to punch you
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between the eyes. I mean, that's the kind of, that's what, you know, that's anger. It's not,
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you know, I'm not going to punch Carl between the eyes. You know, the whole thing is absurd.
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And to make the complaint three months after it happened, you know.
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But also Zaire Youssef is 38 and Rupert loves 67.
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Kind of embarrassing, but for Zaire Youssef, if he felt intimidated by it. No, I'm not saying that
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Rupert isn't in good shape or anything, but, you know, when you're sort of our age, Zaire,
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and when you're being threatened by a man of his age,
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if that is what happened, it's a bit embarrassing for you to take that seriously, frankly.
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Yeah, indeed. And, you know, the application, the complaint, rather, filed with the police
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happened the day after the whole thing blew up, as did these bullying things. You know,
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there's no cause and effect between the threats of physical violence and a complaint to the police.
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The cause and effect is between Rupert outshining Nigel,
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Nigel wishing to set Rupert aside, Rupert speaking up, and then being absolutely nailed.
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And by the way, I've seen that playbook used dozens and dozens of times
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by Zaire Youssef and Nigel across the country, to set aside good, former grassroots members of
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reform, who've stood shoulder to shoulder with me in various elections and others,
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campaigning for reform, putting reform on the map, and they have been summarily dismissed with their
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reputations tarnished. Many, many people, I won't start naming names, because otherwise I would have
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Yeah, I'd be here all day. It's absolutely abominable. And I could see what was happening,
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Carl, with Rupert. So I wrote to Rupert, and I'm so glad I did. I sent him a text. I can send you a copy
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of it after this interview, if you're interested. I sent Rupert a text on the morning of the 28th of
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February, before any complaint was made by reform against Rupert. And I said, Rupert,
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the drumbeat division between you and Nigel is getting very loud. In my experience, what's going
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to happen next is they will sack you and they will rubbish you. Please resign before they do it.
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Otherwise, they will seek their lies to trump your truth. But if you resign, you can get your story
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out there. You can own the truth before they can seek to rubbish you. And I was so glad I sent that
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text. I mean, Rupert, I think, was aware to the wrist. But, you know, I'm so glad I sent that text
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because that's exactly what happened. They just went after Rupert's jugular. And it's a despicable
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way to treat a colleague or 20% of your parliamentary party, no less. You know, absolutely despicable.
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And that, for me, puts reform into an unreformable category. Nigel has to go.
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Well, this is the issue, isn't it? It's not just a despicable way to
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treat a colleague. It's a despicable way to treat anyone. I mean, you know, I've got no
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love for Labour MPs, but I certainly wouldn't do something like this to one of them. I would
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hopefully defeat them on the merits of the argument, right? And so the fact that this is
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the right-wing party in Britain, and like I said at the beginning, it's kind of like it's controlled
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by House Harkonnen with lots of evil scheming and backstabbing, and who knows what's going on.
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Yeah, it's frankly disgusting. But I'm very glad that Rupert Lowe has shown a great deal of
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fortitude in the face of this. And he's just said, well, I don't take anything back.
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I'm not apologizing for anything. I'm going to take legal action, whatever he's going to do.
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But I hope it's successful. But I think a lot of people will be asking, okay, so what now then?
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If in fact reform are, as you say, unreformable, which honestly is probably true, and they will
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take advantage of the goodwill of tens of thousands of good people. And I met these people during the
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UKIP days and now, because of course lots of them are subscribers of ours and fans of ours.
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So I meet them all the time. And I see them all the time doing as much hard work as anyone could
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ever ask for them. And it's very clear that anyone around Nigel Farage and in his party is
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essentially a marked man who could get thrown under the bus the second that Farage's Ike Sauron
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falls on them. And he recognizes them as an entity. They could go straight under the bus,
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just like two of my men have been thrown under the bus. Dan Tubbs and Bo Dade, they were to stand
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as reform candidates out of the kindness of their heart, really. And they got deselected on
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trivialities. And so people are going to ask, okay, well, what can we do then? So what do you
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think we should be thinking about doing from here on?
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So Rupert, like me and like you and so many others, is on the political battlefield, not because he wants
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to advance his political career or make money, as you said, he donates his salary to charities,
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because he fears for the future of the country. So Rupert ain't going anywhere. And even though
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I was shoved pretty ignominiously aside, I ain't going anywhere. And we've got to deal with the
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present problem, which is a full on attack on Rupert's reputation and an attempt to incarcerate
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them. We have to deal with that. And I'm talking to Rupert frequently and regularly, and we will deal
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with that. And then once we've dealt with it, we need to gather ourselves. And we need to make sure that
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we create a force somehow, which is capable of saving the United Kingdom. And that's what we've
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got to do. And even if that ends up destroying reform, so be it.
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Well, if this is the fight that we've been forced to have, then this is the fight we've been forced
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to have. Because I will have lots of people after this asking me, well, are you going to start a
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political party then? Is Ben Habib from Rupert going to start a political party? Because it's become
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wildly apparent that the ivory tower view of politics that Nigel Farage has taken has been
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a marked, and honestly, I don't think great success, in contrast to, say, Donald Trump's
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big tent politics, in which he has just said everyone can come and join the MAGA movement.
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And so I think people are asking for some kind of big tent right-wing politics where we can just
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literally take everyone. Because there are dozens of totally wasted commentators, political pundits,
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thinkers, academics, people with civil servants, ex-politicians, current politicians,
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who are currently homeless and don't want to put their lives in Nigel Farage's hands.
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Absolutely right. I mean, if you look at Nigel's history, every single entity with which he's been
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involved has entered in absolute flumin turmoil. And fundamentally, Mr. Brexit didn't get Brexit,
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even though he says he did. And I'm without wishing to get caught in the weeds again. You know,
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for me, that's a fundamental issue, because Brexit was the first step to freeing us from the liberal
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global order and restoring the United Kingdom. If Mr. Brexit doesn't get that, you know, he ain't
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worthy of holding that title. He's got to go. So I'm afraid I am irreconcilably at odds with Nigel
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Farage, as is Rupert Lowe. And as I'm sure you, I don't want to speak to you, Carl, but, you know,
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many are. And so we've got to do something, a new party or something. We are going to do something.
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I think that's a superb idea, because, honestly, just the constant refrain is,
00:23:41.080
well, Nigel Farage is the only game in town. It's like, okay, well,
00:23:44.840
Well, no, in a way, they're correct, right? He is at the moment, because we let him be the only game
00:23:49.880
in town. Because we don't, oh, we don't want to split the vote. We don't want to do this. Well,
00:23:53.480
he's already splitting the Conservative vote. He already delivered us Keir Starmer. So, well,
00:23:58.440
we may as well contest for it, I would say. There's no point in letting him just run roughshod
00:24:04.200
like this. I mean, I think politically, what he's got really wrong, what he's really misunderstood,
00:24:09.880
everyone says he's a great political tactician. What he's totally misunderstood is that the 2024
00:24:16.840
election actually was a something majority for the right wing. Yes. I know we got a something majority,
00:24:23.240
Labour MPs. But actually, if you took the four and a half million people who didn't vote,
00:24:27.960
and you add them to the votes that the Conservatives and reform got, it was a thumping right wing
00:24:33.560
victory. And the next election is not going to be won in the centre ground, which is where Nigel
00:24:38.200
is hurriedly going. The next election is going to be won by a party that is unashamedly pro-British,
00:24:44.440
and has policies that are actually dramatic in the impact that they will have in restoring the
00:24:50.360
country. Anything left isn't going to work. We're not in a tinkering moment. We're watching
00:24:55.080
the existential threat to the United Kingdom actually being delivered. We've got to stop it.
00:25:00.600
And Nigel ain't the man, because he's tacking right to the middle. I mean, one of the differences
00:25:04.600
between him and Rupert is over the mass deportation of illegal migrants. What can be wrong with that as a
00:25:10.760
policy? Nigel doesn't want to do it. This is crazy, actually, because even
00:25:17.240
leaning left outlets like YouGov, when they poll, find that two thirds of the public want
00:25:22.600
deportations of illegal immigrants. This is completely uncontroversial. And even half of
00:25:27.640
Liberal Democrat voters want illegal immigrants deported. This is the most centre ground political
00:25:34.840
position in the entire country with by far the most public support. And so for Nigel Forrest to
00:25:40.120
row back and say, I never said, I was anti-migration. I don't want mass deportations. I don't want these.
00:25:44.520
It's like, okay, but this is, this is a very peculiar retreat from the most obviously correct
00:25:51.320
political win and easiest political win. Why is he backing down from this?
00:25:56.360
I don't know. He's, I mean, it's just, I mean, the only word is stupid.
00:26:03.320
It's in the manifesto. Well, it's just blooming stupid, Carl, isn't it? It's just stupid. He's
00:26:08.360
lost the plot. I don't know what he's on, you know? Yeah. Whatever it is, I don't want to be on it.
00:26:13.800
Yeah, no, I'm in complete diametric opposition to it. Um, okay. So, uh, with, um, with the events with
00:26:23.640
Rupert Lowe, do you see any potential future in which, uh, the Nigel Farage and the sort of cabal
00:26:33.960
of people controlling the reform party? Um, not that I think they can be removed from the party
00:26:38.600
or anything like that, but may perhaps change their minds on any of this in any way.
00:26:43.320
And Nigel has to go. You can't, you can't support Zeya Yusuf, who's reported Rupert to the police.
00:26:53.320
Wrongly reported Rupert to the police and then continue to hold your position. It's a resignation
00:26:59.560
matter. If reform wants reform, Nigel has to go. And that's an impossible. I mean,
00:27:06.040
you and I know that ain't going to happen. No, no. So what do you, what do you make of the, um,
00:27:11.480
allegation that Nigel is the reform party and without him, there is no reform party. There's no polling
00:27:16.760
for reform. They'll never get anywhere. They'll never have any, uh, impact on the national polls.
00:27:21.560
Uh, and if it wasn't for Nigel Farage, no one would have a seat and the entire party would
00:27:27.160
essentially be liquidated. So to the latter point, I would say bollocks, because as we all know,
00:27:34.520
Nigel Farage wasn't on even on the political battlefield when reform was being established.
00:27:39.320
It was established with him absent on the eve of the general election. We were polling at 16%.
00:27:45.720
We actually got 14% in the general election of the vote. That was bang in line with our polling.
00:27:53.160
So we were going to get MPs. I knew we were going to get MPs. Some seats were obviously better than
00:27:58.680
others. It had nothing to do with Nigel Farage coming back. In fact, Nigel, Carl, in my view,
00:28:04.440
was damaging to our electoral prospects during the general election because he sucked up so much capital,
00:28:10.040
so much resource into Clacton. You know, the whole reform machinery went around Clacton.
00:28:15.560
I had zero support in Wellingborough. I paid for my entire election campaign myself,
00:28:20.600
and I had zero support. And I implored Nigel to come and help me. And he didn't. He didn't even,
00:28:26.680
well, as you know, I haven't spoken to him, um, since he appointed himself leader. No,
00:28:31.000
Nigel was damaging to our election, general election. So the idea, and we got there without
00:28:37.560
Nigel. And we were going to, even if Nigel hadn't come back, we were going to go higher in the polls
00:28:43.480
after winning five seats. Under Richard Tice, we would have gone higher in the polls because
00:28:48.280
people would have looked at reform and said, wow, oh my God, they are not just a protest vote.
00:28:54.120
They've actually got seats. And that's seismic. We broke into the first-past-the-post system. We got
00:28:59.720
five seats and we came second in 98 seats. Under the first-past-the-post, with the right policies and
00:29:05.800
the right people, we could win a general election. It's not nonsense. We could do it. But you've got
00:29:11.560
to have the right people. And you can't get the right people if you have a despot, a narcissistic,
00:29:17.560
prickly, adolescent despot in charge of reform. And that's what Nigel is. Nigel is a problem
00:29:24.840
for reform. He's not the answer. Yeah. Now, I actually, uh, firmly find myself falling into this
00:29:31.320
camp because like you said, not only, I mean, at one point when Nigel, when Nigel Farage wasn't
00:29:36.920
leading it, it peaked at 21% of a poll. And so you can see there was an organic desire for reform
00:29:43.160
anyway. But also, uh, Nigel Farage seems to essentially be claiming the victory in Clacton,
00:29:49.800
but that was ground laid for him by Douglas Carswell back in 2015, I think it was, uh, when he won the
00:29:57.320
by-election there and this Nigel Farage only came back to reform because the polling out of Clacton
00:30:04.760
put a reform victory in there. And so he unceremoniously threw under the bus, whoever
00:30:09.720
was the, uh, there we go. The person who's supposed to be the candidate in reform, uh, in Clacton,
00:30:16.120
threw them under the bus and then made it all about himself. But that was a seat that you were on track
00:30:21.480
to win anyway without Nigel Farage. Absolutely. Absolutely. Without Nigel Farage. And he hadn't
00:30:28.360
won previously either. It was, it was Carswell who'd won. Sorry. Yeah. No, no, no. But you're
00:30:33.720
right. And Nigel has stood seven times for parliament and didn't make it. So where's all that charisma?
00:30:38.920
And, you know, without Nigel, you can't do it. Well, with Nigel, they didn't do it. And actually,
00:30:43.720
without Nigel, we put reform on the mat. Now, I think a lot of the reason why reform got on the mat
00:30:49.720
was because the British people are crying out for the United Kingdom to be rescued.
00:30:54.200
It doesn't matter who fills that political vacuum. If someone fills it, the British people
00:30:58.840
will vote for it as long as they're aware that that option exists. And that's the challenge for
00:31:03.640
any new entrant is making the British people aware that you exist. And, but you know, if Rupert
00:31:09.720
were to do something, I think it's a bit early because we've got to, you know, fight this battle
00:31:14.360
that Nigel has declared, this war that Nigel has declared on Rupert. But if Rupert were to do
00:31:19.480
something, he's an MP, he has a voice, he will be leading from the front. This is not an insurgency.
00:31:27.080
This will be something quite different. And he will have great minds and great thinkers. And I think
00:31:32.520
a large swathe of the British population because of social media coming around him very quickly,
00:31:38.280
including hundreds of grassroots former reformers who have been thrown out unceremoniously from the
00:31:44.760
party who would rally around Rupert and me straight away. I know that I know the grassroots.
00:31:51.720
Unlike Nigel, I actually went around the country meeting these people for a year and a half,
00:31:56.200
speaking at all their rallies, geeing them up, giving them hope. And, you know, in many ways,
00:32:02.200
I feel like a charlatan having done it to see, you know, what Nigel delivered for them in the end,
00:32:06.840
which was setting them aside. But they will come around to us and they will trust us and they will
00:32:11.240
know that we will fight for them. And as you say, it has to be a broad tent. You've got to take
00:32:15.480
everyone in from the movement. You can't say, well, he's not welcome. He's not welcome. He said
00:32:19.400
something, you know, nasty once. Everyone, for God's sake, someone said something nasty once. That
00:32:24.520
doesn't exclude them from, you know, public activity. It's just an absurd concept. And on that note,
00:32:31.240
I've been dying to say this on media, but I haven't had the opportunity. Nigel's right-hand man,
00:32:37.240
who has no democratic position, isn't an executive of reform, has nothing to do ostensibly with the
00:32:46.440
party Reform UK. There's a guy called George Cottrell, who's a convicted flipping felon.
00:32:51.400
But that doesn't stop Nigel from having him as his right-hand. He's never more than five yards from
00:32:56.040
Nigel. So all this high-horse cup about, oh, you know, we've got to vet people. We've got to take
00:33:01.000
the high road. You know, we're going to throw Rupert under a bus. That's all bollocks again.
00:33:05.400
No, I think so. And what also very much frustrates me is, again, there are two strategies to this,
00:33:15.880
and Nigel seems to have picked the wrong one on each count. So you've got the sanitized strategy,
00:33:23.320
in which you must have only people who are 100 percent approved of by the mainstream media.
00:33:29.880
So people who essentially have never used social media, or have never made a joke, or have never
00:33:34.520
said anything interesting in their entire political career and in their public presence.
00:33:38.440
Or you can take the Donald Trump, Steve Bannon approach, which is flood the zone. Just have
00:33:43.400
everyone, all the time, everywhere. So there's just no point in the media making a big deal about one
00:33:48.360
person saying one thing somewhere else. But this is what we are, and this is what we're going to do.
00:33:52.520
And that's worked very, very well for Donald Trump. And currently, Nigel Farage is engaged in a civil
00:33:58.280
war with one fifth of his own party. I agree with you. I agree with you. We've got to take,
00:34:04.840
we've got to take a Trumpian approach to this. And, you know, what's really interesting, ironically,
00:34:10.440
is that Trump sees Nigel for what he is. It's not just Elon Musk. Trump sees Nigel for what he is.
00:34:15.480
And, you know, Nigel's blown it across the Atlantic. And Rupert hasn't. Rupert hasn't done it.
00:34:22.360
Yeah, that's an interesting thing, because he didn't get an invite, a formal invite to
00:34:28.120
No, he didn't. He didn't. He was on the periphery. He didn't even listen to Trump's
00:34:32.840
speech, if you believe what, sorry, what's that? Katie Hopkins. Katie Hopkins said she bumped into
00:34:40.680
Nigel Farage lighting a bag outside his hotel when Trump was speaking.
00:34:45.160
So he wasn't even listening to Trump's inaugural speech, which is really remarkable, isn't it?
00:34:50.360
But this, yeah, this does indicate that there is a distinct frame there. And like you say,
00:34:56.920
it seems that the Americans are spotting him for what he is. He's not Mr. Brexit, as Trump thought
00:35:02.600
he was going to be. And so we're left, again, without, essentially without a champion, without
00:35:07.960
a purpose, without a place to rally around. And I think people are desperately looking for it.
00:35:12.360
Yeah. And Elon Musk saw it straight away, didn't he? He saw it straight away. And, you know,
00:35:17.480
people say, oh, Elon Musk, he's a controversial character. My God, his brain is sharp. You know,
00:35:21.880
he's 4,000 miles away or whatever it is. And he could see that Nigel ain't the man.
00:35:25.800
Yeah. And Elon's right. And it was clear from the moment that he decided, oh,
00:35:32.520
reform needs new leadership and it should be Rupert Lowe. Well, that's Rupert Lowe. There's a clock on
00:35:36.280
you now, my friend. Yeah, absolutely. Unfortunately, there's no way Nigel is going to not look at that
00:35:42.600
with jealous eyes and make plans on how to get rid of you. Right. So before we end then, is there anything
00:35:49.480
that I should have brought up, but I didn't, do you think? No, I think that was a very broad,
00:35:54.520
the best broad ranging discussion I've had on the subject, if I may say so, since it all kicked off.
00:36:02.200
You know, the other channels, you tend to get like three minutes or whatever it is to talk about
00:36:06.120
something really incredibly important. But I think that, as you say, just leaving this with hope,
00:36:12.600
this is the right bust up to have, because there's no point delivering Nigel into office
00:36:17.480
and then finally he lets us all down. The UK needs dramatic change. Let's have the bust up now.
00:36:23.560
And let's use this opportunity of a bust up by some miracle, either to reform,
00:36:29.640
reform or more likely create a new force of some description, which is going to save the United Kingdom.
00:36:36.920
Wonderful. Ben, thank you so much for joining me. And we'll see you all next time, folks.