London: Kemi Badenoch, Leader of the Conservative Opposition failed again at PMQ’s to challenge Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer over immigration, Starmer swiped an immature Badenoch away with his rebukes. Conservatives are not satisfied with the script that Alan Mak, the British-Chinese MP for Havant, is preparing for her. There is not much enthusiasm for Badenoch’s Tory leadership, Robert Jenrick is waiting in the wings, and his bi-weekly radio show gets excellent traction.
More generally people are not happy with the Government or the Prime Minister, the increased National Insurance Contribution for employers has crippled businesses, resulting in vast numbers of closures and redundancies. The new taxes are impossible for the farming community and small businesses such as corner shops, mini-marts, newsagents, cash & carry outlets, restaurants/cafés and small independent hotels.
Labour cheated to get into power, having campaigned on a more no-tax ticket they have increased taxes, millionaires are leaving the UK at the rate of one every 45 minutes, Labour invented the so-called £22million black hole, Chancellor Rachel Reeves is daily in the news for being a fraud. Nationwide knife crime is rocketing, the new housing Much again very annoying this is close good policies which do not have enough construction workers to build them, the net-zero radicalism and immigration being the focus of the Conservatives and the ReformUK party are all contributing to anti-incumbency sentiments. All this resulting in 52% of young people aged 13-27 polled saying they would prefer to be “ruled by a dictator”. Many young are culturally and politically demoralised by social media, but feeling that they trust social media news more than mainstream media. Another survey suggests these young people are in despair at the state of the world they are inheriting and are overwhelmed by the responsibility of fixing the future.
Labour’s plan is to devolve power to new local Mayors with large budgets, and the scheduled local by-elections have been postponed to accelerate this plan; in 2016 Brexit achieved more Leave votes in London (1.5million) than the London votes for the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan (1.08million) in 2024.
Presently the only way to remove an unpopular Labour leader is if 20% of the sitting 411 Labour MPs nominate a new Leader, then the National Executive Committee would take over proceedings, this looks like impossibility at the moment.
The ReformUK party is gathering further momentum, this week a combined voting intention poll put them at the top with 29%, Labour at 23% and Conservatives at 21%. The Reform leader Nigel Farage and MPs Richard Tice, Rupert Lowe, Lee Anderson and James McMudoch are all goading the government on specific topics; Farage on the Exchequer and supporting his MPs issues, Tice on energy and ReformUK’s idea of introducing a windfall tax on renewable energy profits, Lowe on immigration and the grooming gangs cover-up, Anderson on claiming the “Red Wall Constituencies” that were lent to Boris Johnson in 2019, and McMurdoch on testing the government on every issue from the Assisted Dying Private Members Bill to ensuring that UK taxpayers contributions to the United Nations are not funding initiatives that undermine British national interests. Reform were expected to top 200 councils in the postponed council elections, recently the party have set up a new candidate recruiting and vetting department under Andrea Jenkyns, a former Conservative MP.
So far the only Badenoch policy disclosed is that new arrivals/legal migrants must wait 15 years before being eligible for British Citizenship, extended from 5 years. ReformUK want to “detain and deport” illegals and leave the ECHR. The Home Office deported 600 Brazilians in August and September 2024, it isunderstood some of these were eligible for the voluntary returns service that can provide up to £3,000 in financial support for migrants, in essence paid repatriations. 19,000 failed asylum seekers have been deported since Labour took power in July 2024 but there were 36,949 irregular arrivals detected in the year ending September 2024, no recent figures are available till the end of this month.
Now that ReformUK have an immigration policy outline in the shape of “Detain and Deport”, what is needed next is a foreign relations focus. Reform is likely to be in step with the Trump administration, making Britain Great again, establishing Britain in first position in Europe with Trump, with eyes on the Indo-Pacific and International Trade. Britain’s policies might be tested by asking “Does this policy work in tandem with our most important friends?”, “Does it advance Britain’s security?”, “Does it bring prosperity and wealth creation?”.
At present in-terms of the above the geopolitical abyss between UK and US could not be wider, first is what next on the Ukraine-Russia front, there is little alignment between UK/Europe and the US. Next up is giving up the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, where the Chinese are influential. The Telegraph revealed that in 2019 as vice-president of the International Court of Justice, XueHanqin ruled that the UK should give islands to Mauritius ‘as rapidly as possible’. The UK-Mauritius negotiations began in November 2022; to date 12 rounds of talks have taken place. Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair’s former Chief of Staff is the PM’s envoy; in October 2024 he said “These are very tiny islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean where no one actually goes. So I don’t think we should be too worried about losing that bit of territory”. Starmer’s barrister colleague and friend Philippe Sands KC is Mauritius’ chief legal adviser and promoter of Mauritian control of the archipelago. Lord Hermer, UK Attorney General, got permission granted for the relocation of 55 Tami asylum seekers from Diego Garcia to the UK. Nobody understands why Starmeret all are bent on surrendering the Chagos. Sir Chris Bryant, Minister of State at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, undermined the Government’s case for the Chagos deal, which involved a legal threat to military communications channels between UK and US on the Diego Garcia military base.
Then there is the never-ending FTA with India, which obviously passes all three tests above but is not being pursued with any urgency. On the other hand it could be there is no interest from India in securing an FTA; after Trump’s revelations of USAID is it possible there are unfriendly influences in UK government.
Starmer did not go to the AI Action Summit, co-hosted with India in Paris, yet declares that UK is a leader in AI, in January the government introduced a plan and 50 new measures they believe will make the UK irresistible to AI firms. Neither did Starmer go to the Munich Security Conference, instead he had a call with President Zelensky, with Starmer reiterating that the UK’s commitment to Ukraine being on an irreversible path to NATO, as agreed by Allies at the Washington Summit in 2024… The abyss between US and UK widens.