Making predictions is a dangerous business, but I’m up for the challenge. I was proved right about the 12 Day War after all. So it’s in this fit of hubris that I bravely venture the following claim: that Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch will be our next Prime Minister.
It may seem preposterous at the moment what with Nigel Farage and his phalanx of amateurs leading the charge for Number 10. Not to mention the Tories at 20% in the polls. But still more than 3 years out from the next General Election, I say the writing’s already on the wall for her populist challengers..
Let us begin with why Reform UK are heading for a fall. It may take a lengthy few paragraphs.
The first, and most substantial, reason is that general elections are about forming the next government and Nigel Farage would struggle to fill a front bench, let alone a full government payroll. Leaving himself and Richard Tice aside, the rest of his motley crew are a gang of non-professionals that he picked up in the local pub. Change it may be. Reform it most certainly is. But not, unfortunately, in the direction of competence.
How about the recently defecting Tories I hear you cry?! Won’t they bring a much needed dollop of government experience? Aren’t they serious people for serious times? Well yes and no. They certainly have experience of government, but given the Reform UK calling card - that the Tories wrecked the country and that it’s time for a change - it’s rather hard for Farage to paint this as a positive. From his perspective, it’s like inviting the competent arsonist back into the building. It isn’t change. It isn’t reform. It’s a return to Boris Johnson era governance with the scruffy-haired bon vivant absent from prime position. How it’s a “break with the broken policies of the two main parties” is anyone’s guess.
Faced with more of the same, the previously apathetic Reform voter will say at home. It’s hard to break the habit of a lifetime.
Speaking of Boris Johnson, the nature of the defecting disloyalists is very familiar in its uniformity. They’re all members of the erstwhile Johnson team now wearing a different colour rosette. Nadine Dorries. Nadhim Zahawi. Soon it’ll be Jacob Rees-Mogg. It’s like changing holiday destination by going back to where you went last year.
But, more than that, it’s a refutation of the main argument for voting Reform. It is their contention, not without some validity, that immigration was far too high under the Johnson administration. If that were so, it seems more than odd to invite the very same team to reverse the very same policy that they themselves introduced. Hardly likely to assuage the anger of the public nor give them confidence that “change” is on its way. In any case, that ship might have sailed: Net migration has already plummeted in recent figures from near a million per year under the post-Brexit Conservatives to 200,000 today. A huge drop which may encourage voters to refocus on the economy.
And it is the economy, after all, that is the cause of all our problems. If we were somehow to reintroduce business friendly conditions, the results would be positive for everyone. Better public services. Better investment in the military. Better standard of living. And successful companies would be encouraged to return home.
And who is it that’s best placed to refocus our economic affairs on the path of growth? It sure isn’t Reform UK which is about as right wing as the left wing of an aeroplane. In full concert with fellow populist Marine Le Pen, Farage offers a tired (sic) and tested programme of economic leftism. A bloated welfare state. Ballooning spending. A consolidated attack on business. To be sure, Farage doesn’t believe in any of it - he’s a former stockbroker after all - but it’s what his working class base unabashedly want —and like the good politician he is, he’s determined to offer it, the economy be damned.
Whether it’s Ukraine or our finances, Nigel Farage’s incoherent faction are on the wrong side of politics and any talk of “uniting the right” falls flat in the face of the political facts. Just like Johnson (and Starmer and Brown and...) before him, he likes selling cash for votes in the form of other people’s money. He isn’t right. He’s a populist. Some change!
It is into this political environment that Badenoch steps masterfully into the breach. Offering a truly pro-business approach to the economy, she stands out like a cured thumb in a field of flailing, out-of-control spenders. The issue for us here isn’t so much whether her approach will (economically) work, but rather that it is different. Unlike the general left and the populist “right” (and Johnsonianism for that matter), she offers something other than spending we can’t afford, and in this way she has a clear place in the political marketplace. Rumours of Conservative extinction are very much exaggerated.
Yet beyond her political appeal in a world of more-of-the-sameness, it is what Badenoch represents that is the most refreshing. Her personal story is an inspiration that blows the cobwebs away from British politics —an example of admirable resilience and can-do personal agency. She has lived in two countries on two continents and been in almost every social class in both of them. She grew up in a Middle Class Nigerian family, only to fall into poverty during that country’s economic crisis. In the UK, she’s been a struggling working class student flipping burgers in McDonald’s, a Middle Class engineering graduate and a leader of the West’s oldest political party! She’s lurched up and down the social ladder with alarming frequency, but has emerged stronger than ever, never giving way to despair on those occasions when her wealth and status has disappeared. How many of us could do the same?
It is this never-say-die spirit that has propelled her to the very top of British society and she absolutely deserves every success. She embodies personal responsibility and agency, the two qualities most lacking in our modern world. Even as party leader, she has had to face constant leadership talk and plots for her removal. She’s had to stay strong when her party has been languishing in the polls. Yet after all of that, and drawing on her vast reservoirs of resilience, she has emerged fighting, with an inspiring Conference speech, an unforgettable Budget response and a ruthless sacking of a rival that shows decisive leadership.
In an era where we are right to be concerned about certain categories of immigration to Britain, we should still hold fast to controlled migration in the categories of economically-beneficial, culturally-adjacent newcomers that we freely and legally choose for entry. Unlike Reform UK, whose “policies” wreak of blanket hostility to even those that would benefit us, Kemi represents successful migration: someone who worked hard, played by the rules and worked her way towards betterment.
She understands the difference between rule of law, largely tolerant Britain and corrupt, anti-”the wrong kind of black ethnicity” Nigeria.
She is perfectly placed to understand our strengths and weaknesses as a country.
She is the perfect antidote to the reactionary, economic illiteracy of Reform UK.
Beyond these more bread-and-butter concerns, we would be well to reemphasise Kemi’s principled positions which chime with British values. In a time of cancerous hate marches and Birmingham Jew-free exclusion zones, Kemi and her closest team are genuine supporters of those principles that made Britain a shining light of liberty in a gloomy world. She has stood full square behind Israel throughout the entire period since October 7th –and not out of a sense of political calculation, but through a genuine belief that the West is worth saving. She has shown granite-hard solidarity with the Jewish community - and all law-abiding Britons - at a time when appeasement of terror is knocking down the door.
Reform has an electoral ceiling, whereas the Conservatives - should they resist the temptation to stray too far from the economy - have a chance to build a genuinely, wide coalition. A coalition built on growth and conservation: growth of the economy and conservation of the values that built the British-built Anglo-West.
That Reform UK will founder, I have no doubt. A one man show that can’t even keep 5 MPs in line. A naked repository of ambition that showcases the non-change we definitely don’t need.
Kemi, by contrast, is something different. A true phenomenon. Her very presence at the top of politics is a powerful rebuttal to a woeful decade of woke. As an intelligent, black, immigrant woman who doesn’t need to tell us that she’s an intelligent, black, immigrant woman, she releases us from the tales of victimhood that have so plagued the Western conversation. She is more than a colour, a sex or a Home Office Status. She’s the next Prime Minister – and in 3 years time you’ll all be telling me that I was right.
The 500th edition of Guerre and Shalom is here. It tells you why I wrote Pax Arabica.
I’m sorry but let’s face it, the state of Britain SUCKS! The United Kingdom is in the worst shape it’s been in since the 1970s. Sir Keir Starmer’s government is a total joke. He is the worst British PM Britain has had since Alec Douglas-Home. Britain is in ruins let’s just be honest folks. The nation has lost its pride, self-respect and dignity. The Union Jack has been tarnished. The Labour Party is a shell of its former self, is gradually dying and full of antisemites and Jihadists. Reform UK are like a clown car. Nigel Farage, Richard Tice, a band of disgruntled former Tories, and a motley assortment of misfits with no political experience are all they have to offer. They also have no policy platform other than big spending and stop almost all immigration.
Kemi Badenoch and the Tories are the future of Britain. She is the black Margaret Thatcher who is the rising political star Britain needs in 2026. She came from humble origins, is the daughter of immigrants, worked an average working class job, and is a staunch opponent of identity politics, antisemitism and mass immigration. She is the leader Britain needs to get the nation back on the right track! In three years, the British people will elect her I have no doubt. Keir Starmer is to quote Buzz Lightyear from the classic film Toy Story “a sad, strange little man.” His goofy black glasses make him look like your awkward, nerdy primary school teacher who rambles on too much about algebra equations and his stamp collection. Let’s not forget certified genius Foreign Secretary David Lammy makes Mr. Bean look like Winston Churchill!
When Kemi is elected Prime Minister, here is what I believe she should do. She should cut government spending, cut taxes for the lower and middle classes and businesses and roll back regulations. Cut the cost of living and build more affordable housing. Completely reform the education system. Restore the nuclear family. Increase marriage rates and bring down divorce rates. Raise the birth rate to 2.1. Sign a formal alliance with Israel. Withdraw recognition for a Palestinian state immediately. Fundamentally reform the immigration system and prioritize culturally-adjacent countries and middle-man minorities. Clean up the big cities especially London. Shut down all no-go zones and do mass deportations of illegal immigrants. Stop the boats and turn them around. Massively raise military spending and massively increase the size of the British military. Scrap any and all plans for colonial reparations. Protect important social programs like the NHS. Outlaw gender-affirming care for minors. Prosecute all those involved in the Grooming Gang Scandal. Build a coalition government and emphasize national unity as Prime Minister.
As it is said in the Jewish world, ‘from your mouth to Hashem’s (G-d’s) ears’.
I too have every confidence in Kemi. A breath of fresh air. Let’s hope she can build a team competent enough to regain the confidence of the electorate. Labour under Starmer is nothing but a shite show, and Starmer has proved that anything he says, should be taken with a pinch of salt.