Reform Party Bombshell, Truss EU Pledge & Trump Wins Big
The Next Conservative PM has a massive problem.
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Reform Drop Truth Bomb
The commitment from Reform UK Party Leader Richard Tice that his party will stand in nearly every constituency could be a major factor at the next General Election.
Tice’s bombshell over the weekend - that made the Mail on Sunday front page - demonstrates the huge trouble the Tory Party are in if they don’t stop the illegal migration madness across from France we are seeing at record levels.
Tice has highlighted a leaked report showing that a large percentage of those coming across on small boats are from Albania.
This comes at a time when the boat crossings are rapidly ramping up. Last week saw more than 1,700 people using this route in a single week, a statistic that will horrify many who voted Conservative at the last election.
Both Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss have talked up the Rwanda policy as being part of the solution to stop this madness. But the fact is that policy has still not been implemented and after the European Court’s intervention, there is no date or sign of when (if?) it will actually ever be a reality.
Tice’s campaigning on this over the weekend, and the potential for Reform candidates across the country calling for a withdrawal from ECHR, underlines again that the next Tory Leader must act quickly or they will lose the next election.
Truss Time Ticking
With Liz Truss the clear overwhelming favourite to win the Conservative leadership race, her article for The Telegraph over the weekend gave a clear insight to her agenda.
Truss does seem to understand that she must hurry up and deliver Conservative policies if her party wants to win back the Brexiteer voter coalition that secured the Tories their 2019 majority.
She is planning an emergency budget and tax cuts, including a suspension of the insane green levies that inflate the public’s energy bills.
Pledging to “hit the ground running”, Truss also set out how:
“I have led the way in striking dozens of post-Brexit trade deals around the world and gripping the Northern Ireland Protocol. I will go further to make the most of our new-found freedoms outside the EU by setting a “sunset” deadline for every piece of EU-derived legislation and testing whether it supports economic growth by the end of 2023.”
Talk is fine but Leavers will be wanting to see concrete action on the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill and scrapping of EU rules. The clock is ticking.
Starmer Trailing Behind
The Labour Party should be worried about this. A second pollster, this time Opinium, has Keir Starmer trailing Liz Truss in the ‘Best PM’ question.
Notably Starmer leads both Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak in a head-to-head.
But Truss is already more popular than Starmer. Contrary to the narrative some have tried to push, it looks like pursuing actual conservative policies is popular with the British public.
The evidence right now is that in actual fact it is Liz Truss who is best placed to beat Labour at the next election. But she will need to deliver as PM.
Massive Trump Win
You may not have heard much about this in British mainstream media - a shock I know - but US polls are recording consistent levels of support for a Donald Trump 2024 run.
President Biden’s approval ratings meanwhile have sunk to a new low recently. Just 38% of Americans are currently satisfied with his performance.
Trump now beats Biden in a hypothetical 2024 rematch and Trump’s lead over Vice President Kamala Harris is even larger.
The latest CPAC straw poll of US conservatives has Trump backed as the overwhelming top choice.
Trump won a landslide 69% of the vote with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in a distant second on 24%. No other Republican recorded more than 3% support.
The likely choice for American conservatives in 2024 now looks very likely to either be Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis. Or perhaps both on a President-Vice President joint ticket?