The Deputy leader of Reform UK has said that his party did not trust the Conservatives to deliver on their election promises and that the Conservatives need to remove their ‘One Nation lot’ if they were to become a resurgent right wing party.
Ben Habib was responding to a proposal put forward by Jacob Rees-Mogg to ‘reunite the right’ for the general election but was told by Habib, ‘the Conservative Party hasn't been conservative.’
Speaking on GB News Ben Habib said:
“Everything you said I absolutely applaud and I'm 100% behind. How could I disagree? You describe the landscape that certainly I, Nigel, Richard and of course yourself, Priti, Suella and a number of others in your party would wish to see.
“Why wouldn't we want the championing of the British private sector, taking back control, ditching unnecessary regulation, cutting taxes, taking the burden off the working middle class, getting rid of net zero, which I have described many times as the economic emasculation of the United Kingdom.
“They’re not even right wing, they're just common sense. You would do this to propel the United Kingdom. We've seen what a nonsense not having borders has made of Northern Ireland; a border down the Irish Sea, rather than when it should be between Northern Ireland and the Republic. A failure to protect our borders to the east, a lack of understanding from Jeremy Hunt that if you want the economy to flourish, the private sector has to do well.
“And it's not that we can't afford to cut taxes, it's that we can't afford not to cut taxes. That's where we're at.
“So I applaud and agree with you 100%. But the problem I've got is that no matter what you say your party doesn't do what it promises. We've heard these promises for 14 years. Boris Johnson promised a lot of it.
“We were promised all of this and we've been promised it again and again and I would like nothing more than to be put out of politics by a resurgent centre right, pro-British, pro-British people’s interest party that no longer necessitated people like me being in politics. I'm only here, frankly, because the Conservative Party hasn't been conservative.
“One of my biggest concerns in the 2019 general election, apart from the withdrawal agreement, was that I think there were at least 123 candidates I counted that were standing for the Conservative Party again for election that had voted remain, including famously Theresa May.
“And I couldn't get my head around how a party that promised to get Brexit done could return Theresa May to parliament. It was a kind of contradiction in terms for me and it sent up lots of red flags which sadly had been proven to be right.
“I would love for you to get rid of your One Nation lot. They’re the problem. The lot who think that the prosperity of our country is founded in the prosperity of the globe? It isn't.
“The United Kingdom must stand for the United Kingdom and for the people of the United Kingdom. That’s who elects us.”
