The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - What Comes Next？｜ Interview with Ben Habib

00:00:00.000 Hi folks, I have the pleasure of being joined by Ben Habib via Zoom when he's on holiday

00:00:04.560 to discuss what's happening with Nigel Farage, Rupert Lowe and the Reform Party and the future

00:00:10.320 of the right wing in Britain more broadly. Because actually a lot is up in the air at the moment and

00:00:16.760 it's revealing a lot of cockroaches that are currently scurrying for cover and actually I

00:00:22.740 would rather address them and deal with the issues so we can have something a little more

00:00:27.800 wholesome moving forward because one of the things that we have recently seen revealed is that

00:00:33.320 well the allegations against Rupert Lowe actually seem not to be against Rupert Lowe and so Reform

00:00:39.680 kicking him out and saying he'll never be welcomed back because he was mildly and constructively

00:00:46.080 critical of Reform and the position that they're in seems to be part of a pattern of behavior,

00:00:51.980 a long-standing pattern of behavior that Nigel Farage has demonstrated where he mercilessly

00:00:56.260 crushes anyone who he feels may be a popular threat to him and his way of doing things which

00:01:03.300 I think is actually not a very wholesome and healthy way of approaching any kind of political

00:01:08.100 activity. I would personally much rather a cooperative and collaborative way of doing politics and I

00:01:14.500 think that Ben probably agrees with me on that. How are you Ben? I'm very well thank you Carl and good

00:01:20.440 to see you and I agree with you 100%. I mean it doesn't really seem to bear any

00:01:28.440 thinking about it. Why wouldn't we want a large collection of talented, confident, happy people

00:01:36.040 dealing with one another openly and honestly rather than, you know what's weird? Like someone

00:01:41.320 earlier today said that this seems to be like this the plot of Dune playing out as if Nigel Farage

00:01:48.600 represents sort of House Harkonnen and the tradies on the other side saying well can't we just

00:01:53.800 be good? Can't we be decent? What's your impression of all of this been so far?

00:01:58.200 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

00:02:10.280 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

00:02:17.400 attacks but when a man controls the political party, when he makes himself the centre of attention,

00:02:25.640 doesn't allow anyone else to come forward, crushes anyone that actually could share the limelight with

00:02:31.960 him and in order to deliver the country to safety. You would need a team of Samson, you know, and they

00:02:39.080 would have to share the limelight with him. Indeed he should be encouraging people who are better than

00:02:42.920 him to join the party. That's what a proper leader would do. But he crushes anyone who comes close to

00:02:49.160 rivaling him for media attention. And so when you've got a narcissist in total control of the nation's hopes,

00:02:56.600 you're in for a bumpy ride. And that's why I was arguing so vehemently for democratisation.

00:03:04.600 It wasn't to set Nigel out of the party, but it was to make sure that there were checks and balances

00:03:10.200 and processes within the party that would enable the great minds of our movement, and I count you as

00:03:16.280 one of those Carl, if I may say so, to actually be heard by the leadership and for your voice to be

00:03:23.400 entertained, not dismissed. At the moment, because it's the Nigel Farage controlled party,

00:03:28.920 the only thing anyone can do, and Rupert tried it, is to plead with Nigel, say, please, Nigel,

00:03:34.200 please do this. And if Nigel doesn't want to do it, and as was the case with Rupert, he didn't even

00:03:39.480 meet Rupert. He didn't meet him for months. Rupert was pleading for a meeting and Nigel wouldn't meet

00:03:45.320 him. He didn't have to because he controls the party. And inevitably, it was going to end up in

00:03:52.840 a bust up. So when you've got a strong character like Nigel, a narcissist like Nigel, it's not,

00:04:01.000 I mean, it's not beyond the realms of possibility that you can make that work for the country,

00:04:05.720 but he needs to have checks and balances around him that keep him with it on the straight and narrow.

00:04:12.120 And Nigel has completely shirked that. He says he's democratized the party. He hasn't.

00:04:17.400 It's in his total control. And he is going about doing huge damage to the hopes and aspirations of

00:04:24.840 the country. Because even if somehow, by the way, you know, Carl, even if somehow he can keep his

00:04:32.200 high polls rating, and he can be part of a future government, he won't have the people around him

00:04:38.920 that can articulate the policies, enact the policies, drive those policies through that are

00:04:46.120 so required to save our country. And so it'll be the whole thing will be a pointless exercise.

00:04:52.360 So Rupert was absolutely right to call Nigel out. And if you don't mind me saying so, so was I.

00:04:58.520 I did the same. Absolutely. Absolutely right to call him out. And this is the time to call him out,

00:05:07.640 because we have got for just over four years before the general election. And I'm glad that

00:05:12.280 it's happened sooner rather than later. I thought I was going to be a voice in the wilderness, but this

00:05:18.120 has now become the center, you know, mainstream debate. And the people like you and me and others

00:05:25.400 need to really drive this debate to its natural conclusion, and make sure that we emerge from it

00:05:32.440 with some kind of coherent voice for the colloquial right wing. I don't think I'm right wing. I mean,

00:05:39.480 I think I'm just pro British. But you know, yeah, you know what I mean?

00:05:42.360 Yeah, there's no point quibbling over the labels at this point.

00:05:45.240 I know. I know. I know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think I think you're exactly

00:05:51.640 on the money here. And I find myself drawing comparisons to different styles of politics.

00:05:58.760 And I just find it bizarre that Nigel has chosen a very rigid and formalized and insecure form of

00:06:06.280 politics. So there are ways of managing groups of people in democratic and also autocratic ways

00:06:13.640 that are not nearly as fragile as the way Nigel Farage has pointed out. So one one good example

00:06:18.360 of this from history, I think, would be Louis XIV with the Palace of Versailles. What he would do is

00:06:22.600 bring his aristocrats to Versailles and make them compete with one another for his attention. 0.82

00:06:27.720 And this meant that his position was actually very secure. And so he wasn't in danger of them

00:06:32.760 overthrowing him or anything like this. Whereas Nigel Farage appears to have taken a very much an ivory

00:06:37.400 tower mentality where he and very few viziers around him are in complete control of everything.

00:06:44.360 Like Zia Yusuf is at the moment acting like some sort of hatchet man, the grand vizier to Nigel Farage,

00:06:50.360 his sultanate. But the thing is, in this sort of Ottoman sense of the sultanate, that's actually a very

00:06:56.120 fragile political machine. Because if the vizier decides to bump off the sultan one day, the sultan has

00:07:01.960 no allies to come and call upon. And so there's no one he can lean into. Whereas Louis XIV would have

00:07:09.320 said, well, no, I've got a dozen other nobles I can go to for support if three or four are planning

00:07:13.640 to kill me. The sultan can do nothing like that because everything is directly underneath him and

00:07:21.160 geared in such a way that no one is allowed to disagree with him. No one is allowed to speak out

00:07:25.800 against him. And so if you're surrounded by fawning yes men, well, you'll be surrounded by the

00:07:30.600 fawning yes men until they drive the knife into your back and you'll never hear a contrary opinion.

00:07:35.320 Fawning yes men are basically fundamentally flawed human beings. They don't have courage. And so when 0.99

00:07:41.480 they sense the change in winds, they'll be the first to drive the knife into you. And I think the

00:07:46.120 analogy that you've given, the historical analogy is absolutely spot on. And there's a human element

00:07:51.640 to this as well, Carl, isn't there? That if you surround yourself with viziers who are at least

00:07:56.520 having the opportunity to air their points of view, have the debate, therapeutically,

00:08:02.440 they're going to feel that they've done their bit. And Nigel couldn't, Rupert couldn't even get

00:08:07.320 close to Nigel. He couldn't get in his ear. He kept saying, come and talk to me. Nigel wouldn't

00:08:12.200 talk to him. And let me just say this, in my own personal experience, Nigel appointed himself leader

00:08:17.240 on the 3rd of June 2024. I was deputy leader. I was not forewarned about Nigel coming back as a leader.

00:08:25.320 Forget about having any discussion with him. I wasn't even told that he was coming back as leader.

00:08:30.120 I discovered in that afternoon at the press conference that he was now a leader. And

00:08:36.360 throughout the general election, I didn't want to speak to Nigel. In fact, I haven't once spoken to

00:08:41.160 Nigel since he came back as leader. We've had some texts, some of which have been frankly abusive from

00:08:47.400 him. And there's been no correspondence. So I knew straight away when he came back

00:08:55.320 that things were going to be problematic. Nigel and I, this isn't about me, but I'm just going

00:09:01.480 to say this if I may. Nigel and I are ideologically at odds. And we have been ideologically at odds

00:09:08.920 for a long, long time. And if I had known that Nigel was coming back into lead reform,

00:09:15.400 I would never have joined reform. I had the firm impression that Nigel wanted to make money. In fact,

00:09:21.320 he's not a firm impression. He told me that. I had dinner with him in 2020. Rupert Lowe,

00:09:25.400 it's really amusing, actually. Now that what's happened to Rupert, it makes this dinner really

00:09:29.800 interesting. So it was in August 2020, when lockdowns had been temporarily removed. Rupert Lowe,

00:09:37.080 Robert Rowland, who's now sadly died, a very good man, would have been on our side in all of this,

00:09:42.760 took Nigel out for dinner. We said, look, Nigel, Brexit is not done. Boris Johnson has to negotiate

00:09:49.640 what subsequently became the trade and cooperation agreement. We need you back in the field. We need

00:09:55.080 you fighting to get a proper Brexit. Because at the heart of breaking from the liberal global order,

00:10:00.120 the first step of that was to break away from the EU properly. You know, anyone who cared about

00:10:05.000 this country knew we had to leave the EU properly. And Nigel turned on me at supper, very expensive

00:10:10.680 supper at the art club in London. It cost me, I think, 700 quid or something for three of us. You know,

00:10:16.600 cigars, top wine. I mean, I really entertained him. And I said, Nigel, what do you need to stay in

00:10:21.960 politics? And he turned on me and he said, it's all right for you. You were born with a silver spoon

00:10:26.120 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 1.00

00:10:31.160 silver spoon up my ass. My father, more often than not, attended my backside with a wooden stick. 1.00

00:10:38.520 You know, it wasn't a silver spoon. And anyway, that's by the by. But I got the firm

00:10:45.320 impression, as I say, he declared it to me, he wanted to make money. He wanted, after 25 years of

00:10:50.840 having what he calls serve the people, he wanted to make money. I thought, great, right, off he goes.

00:10:55.960 That's a perfectly legitimate decision for a man to make. Go and look after your own interests. 0.88

00:11:03.320 But then he said things like Brexit's done, and it wasn't. And then he said things like the United

00:11:09.640 Ireland is inevitable. And then more recently, he's been saying things, you know, which I find an

00:11:14.440 affront. I fought for Northern Ireland to come out of the EU. It's still left behind. And Nigel said,

00:11:21.480 well, you know, who cares about Northern Ireland kind of thing? Well, if you don't, if, you know,

00:11:25.880 this is the other thing. Sorry, I'm digressing. But if you don't know what it is that forms the

00:11:32.520 democratic unit for which you are fighting, and in my view, that is the United Kingdom of Great

00:11:37.960 Britain and Northern Ireland, if you can't define that as the unit for which you're fighting, frankly,

00:11:43.720 you haven't got a joined up political philosophy. And for Nigel to say I'm pro-Brexit, without

00:11:51.480 acknowledging the fact that Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, means he doesn't really

00:11:56.440 know what it means to be pro-Brexit, because it means for the entire United Kingdom to come out.

00:12:02.120 I mean, I'm perfect. Sorry, just in the interest of time.

00:12:06.040 Yeah, I'm getting stuck in the week.

00:12:08.520 It's fine. Everyone does. But so, the point being, there's no reason for Nigel to behave the

00:12:15.560 way he does, right? As far as I can tell, he could instead be a bit more collegial and just have people

00:12:23.400 give their input without feeling threatened by the very nature of the thing. But instead, as far as I can

00:12:29.880 tell, and Rupert Lowe and yourself are just two examples on a long list of people that he has

00:12:34.680 deliberately shut out. But then if he was just shutting you out, then okay, that's one thing.

00:12:40.280 But then he goes on the attack and begins what I can only describe sort of mean girl politics,

00:12:46.520 which is character destruction, reputation destruction. And okay, well, if it's someone

00:12:52.520 like Douglas Carswell that people don't... I mean, it's not okay, but if he's not as

00:12:58.680 well-known on social media, perhaps, as someone like Rupert Lowe, okay, I can see how that works,

00:13:05.880 or if it's Stephen Wolf or whoever, but okay, these are not unknown, but lesser-known people.

00:13:13.080 But Rupert Lowe...

00:13:13.880 And social media didn't exist then, in the way that it exists now.

00:13:17.480 Yeah, precisely. Social media has created a large cohort of very switched on people,

00:13:22.840 as well as well-meaning friends, you know, with lots of people who are very friendly to one another,

00:13:27.960 because they see the virtues and the causes that they're fighting for. And so no doubt,

00:13:32.840 had I been more aware of UKIP back in 2016, I would have had something to say about the way

00:13:37.320 that Stephen Wolf was treated. And so for him now, in the year of our Lord 2025, to do it to

00:13:42.200 Rupert Lowe, who appears to be almost kind of comically good, in a way, as in... I went through

00:13:49.880 this on the podcast today. The BBC went to Great Yarmouth and interviewed people on the street.

00:13:55.800 And the worst anyone could say about him was, well, he's not actually from here. Otherwise,

00:13:59.720 he's brilliant. He's donating his wages to charity. He is actually fixing local concerns. Quote,

00:14:05.560 he is the best MP Great Yarmouth has ever had. And all of the other character witnesses who have

00:14:11.080 come out and said, well, I've known Rupert Lowe for 45 years. He's a giant teddy bear. He's been

00:14:15.240 nothing but kind and chivalrous to everyone around him. Do you think he may have picked the wrong

00:14:21.400 fight here? He's absolutely picked the wrong fight. Rupert Lowe is a first-class gentleman.

00:14:27.320 And it's not that he's thought to destroy his reputation, which is the normal playbook. He's actually

00:14:33.480 sought to destroy Rupert Lowe. You know, however frivolous the complaint to the police,

00:14:42.120 the aim of a complaint to the police is to get someone incarcerated. That's what it is. It's a

00:14:47.240 criminal complaint. There's no way back from that criminal complaint. There was perhaps a very

00:14:52.600 short opportunity during which Nigel could have sacked their youth and said, I do not endorse your

00:14:58.440 criminal complaint. By all means make it, but you do it on your own. But he didn't do it. He doubled

00:15:03.800 down and he supported their youth. And I think it makes, I'm moving on here, but I think it makes

00:15:08.600 any form of reconciliation impossible. You can't seek to have someone incarcerated and then put your

00:15:14.600 arm around their shoulder and say, well, come back into the fold. They've made that clear that they don't

00:15:22.840 want him back, even if he's found innocent. So it shows that it wasn't really about the allegations at

00:15:29.000 all. Yeah. Yeah. So-called allegations, because actually the allegations, there weren't any real

00:15:35.080 allegations. You know, there's no allegation of bullying against Rupert. That's against other people.

00:15:40.360 It just happened to happen in Rupert's office, nothing to do with Rupert. So that's the first one

00:15:46.040 dispensed of. And then the second one is, you know, he threatened Zaire Youssef apparently with

00:15:51.880 physical violence, verbally threatened him with physical violence. Well, isn't reform the singular

00:15:57.960 entity that bangs on about people being, you know, slightly more stiff upper lip when it comes to being

00:16:02.680 offended with words. And even if I said to you, you know, if I said to you, Carl, I wouldn't because

00:16:07.080 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 0.99

00:16:11.080 between the eyes. I mean, that's the kind of, that's what, you know, that's anger. It's not, 0.99

00:16:15.560 you know, I'm not going to punch Carl between the eyes. You know, the whole thing is absurd. 0.82

00:16:19.560 And to make the complaint three months after it happened, you know.

00:16:22.920 But also Zaire Youssef is 38 and Rupert loves 67.

00:16:28.280 Kind of embarrassing, but for Zaire Youssef, if he felt intimidated by it. No, I'm not saying that

00:16:32.920 Rupert isn't in good shape or anything, but, you know, when you're sort of our age, Zaire,

00:16:38.200 and when you're being threatened by a man of his age,

00:16:41.400 if that is what happened, it's a bit embarrassing for you to take that seriously, frankly.

00:16:46.920 Yeah, indeed. And, you know, the application, the complaint, rather, filed with the police

00:16:52.360 happened the day after the whole thing blew up, as did these bullying things. You know,

00:16:58.280 there's no cause and effect between the threats of physical violence and a complaint to the police.

00:17:05.080 The cause and effect is between Rupert outshining Nigel,

00:17:09.400 Nigel wishing to set Rupert aside, Rupert speaking up, and then being absolutely nailed.

00:17:15.240 And by the way, I've seen that playbook used dozens and dozens of times

00:17:21.080 by Zaire Youssef and Nigel across the country, to set aside good, former grassroots members of

00:17:28.280 reform, who've stood shoulder to shoulder with me in various elections and others,

00:17:32.680 campaigning for reform, putting reform on the map, and they have been summarily dismissed with their

00:17:38.200 reputations tarnished. Many, many people, I won't start naming names, because otherwise I would have

00:17:42.920 to, you know, I might forget someone.

00:17:45.000 I'd be here all day as well.

00:17:46.840 Yeah, I'd be here all day. It's absolutely abominable. And I could see what was happening,

00:17:51.640 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

00:17:57.240 of it after this interview, if you're interested. I sent Rupert a text on the morning of the 28th of

00:18:02.360 February, before any complaint was made by reform against Rupert. And I said, Rupert,

00:18:07.240 the drumbeat division between you and Nigel is getting very loud. In my experience, what's going

00:18:15.080 to happen next is they will sack you and they will rubbish you. Please resign before they do it.

00:18:20.520 Otherwise, they will seek their lies to trump your truth. But if you resign, you can get your story

00:18:27.800 out there. You can own the truth before they can seek to rubbish you. And I was so glad I sent that

00:18:34.120 text. I mean, Rupert, I think, was aware to the wrist. But, you know, I'm so glad I sent that text

00:18:39.240 because that's exactly what happened. They just went after Rupert's jugular. And it's a despicable

00:18:45.080 way to treat a colleague or 20% of your parliamentary party, no less. You know, absolutely despicable.

00:18:52.280 And that, for me, puts reform into an unreformable category. Nigel has to go.

00:18:59.320 Well, this is the issue, isn't it? It's not just a despicable way to

00:19:03.960 treat a colleague. It's a despicable way to treat anyone. I mean, you know, I've got no

00:19:10.040 love for Labour MPs, but I certainly wouldn't do something like this to one of them. I would

00:19:14.520 hopefully defeat them on the merits of the argument, right? And so the fact that this is

00:19:21.400 the right-wing party in Britain, and like I said at the beginning, it's kind of like it's controlled

00:19:26.360 by House Harkonnen with lots of evil scheming and backstabbing, and who knows what's going on. 0.91

00:19:34.520 It's very disgusting, frankly. 0.97

00:19:36.920 It's disgusting. 0.92

00:19:37.880 Yeah, it's frankly disgusting. But I'm very glad that Rupert Lowe has shown a great deal of

00:19:41.640 fortitude in the face of this. And he's just said, well, I don't take anything back.

00:19:44.840 I'm not apologizing for anything. I'm going to take legal action, whatever he's going to do.

00:19:48.280 But I hope it's successful. But I think a lot of people will be asking, okay, so what now then?

00:19:54.760 If in fact reform are, as you say, unreformable, which honestly is probably true, and they will

00:20:02.360 take advantage of the goodwill of tens of thousands of good people. And I met these people during the

00:20:08.920 UKIP days and now, because of course lots of them are subscribers of ours and fans of ours.

00:20:13.000 So I meet them all the time. And I see them all the time doing as much hard work as anyone could

00:20:19.720 ever ask for them. And it's very clear that anyone around Nigel Farage and in his party is

00:20:25.720 essentially a marked man who could get thrown under the bus the second that Farage's Ike Sauron

00:20:30.280 falls on them. And he recognizes them as an entity. They could go straight under the bus,

00:20:34.600 just like two of my men have been thrown under the bus. Dan Tubbs and Bo Dade, they were to stand

00:20:40.760 as reform candidates out of the kindness of their heart, really. And they got deselected on

00:20:45.080 trivialities. And so people are going to ask, okay, well, what can we do then? So what do you

00:20:51.240 think we should be thinking about doing from here on?

00:20:54.520 So Rupert, like me and like you and so many others, is on the political battlefield, not because he wants

00:21:01.160 to advance his political career or make money, as you said, he donates his salary to charities,

00:21:08.040 because he fears for the future of the country. So Rupert ain't going anywhere. And even though

00:21:13.000 I was shoved pretty ignominiously aside, I ain't going anywhere. And we've got to deal with the

00:21:19.480 present problem, which is a full on attack on Rupert's reputation and an attempt to incarcerate

00:21:24.760 them. We have to deal with that. And I'm talking to Rupert frequently and regularly, and we will deal

00:21:31.400 with that. And then once we've dealt with it, we need to gather ourselves. And we need to make sure that

00:21:36.520 we create a force somehow, which is capable of saving the United Kingdom. And that's what we've

00:21:42.920 got to do. And even if that ends up destroying reform, so be it.

00:21:46.200 Well, if this is the fight that we've been forced to have, then this is the fight we've been forced

00:21:54.840 to have. Because I will have lots of people after this asking me, well, are you going to start a

00:21:58.760 political party then? Is Ben Habib from Rupert going to start a political party? Because it's become

00:22:04.600 wildly apparent that the ivory tower view of politics that Nigel Farage has taken has been

00:22:10.600 a marked, and honestly, I don't think great success, in contrast to, say, Donald Trump's

00:22:16.920 big tent politics, in which he has just said everyone can come and join the MAGA movement.

00:22:21.880 And so I think people are asking for some kind of big tent right-wing politics where we can just

00:22:27.640 literally take everyone. Because there are dozens of totally wasted commentators, political pundits,

00:22:35.000 thinkers, academics, people with civil servants, ex-politicians, current politicians,

00:22:41.320 who are currently homeless and don't want to put their lives in Nigel Farage's hands.

00:22:47.400 Absolutely right. I mean, if you look at Nigel's history, every single entity with which he's been

00:22:51.480 involved has entered in absolute flumin turmoil. And fundamentally, Mr. Brexit didn't get Brexit,

00:22:58.200 even though he says he did. And I'm without wishing to get caught in the weeds again. You know,

00:23:02.600 for me, that's a fundamental issue, because Brexit was the first step to freeing us from the liberal

00:23:07.000 global order and restoring the United Kingdom. If Mr. Brexit doesn't get that, you know, he ain't

00:23:15.080 worthy of holding that title. He's got to go. So I'm afraid I am irreconcilably at odds with Nigel

00:23:22.440 Farage, as is Rupert Lowe. And as I'm sure you, I don't want to speak to you, Carl, but, you know,

00:23:29.480 many are. And so we've got to do something, a new party or something. We are going to do something.

00:23:34.920 We're going to do something.

00:23:35.880 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 1.00

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. 1.00

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 1.00

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, 0.95

00:29:17.560 prickly, adolescent despot in charge of reform. And that's what Nigel is. Nigel is a problem 0.94

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, 0.57

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

00:34:26.840 Trump's inauguration, did he?

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 0.99

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.

00:36:42.760 Thank you.

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - March 10, 2025

What Comes Next？｜ Interview with Ben Habib

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - March 10, 2025

What Comes Next？ ｜ Interview with Ben Habib

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript

What Comes Next？｜ Interview with Ben Habib