Dear John,
Here in the UK it may have been the week of a spring bank holiday, Parliamentary recess, reading week, and half-term holiday, but someone clearly forgot to tell the news gods. The last few days saw big speeches from - you guessed it - Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, followed by Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Major trade news also emerged from the US as a shock New York federal trade court ruling blocked the majority of President Donald Trump’s sweeping global trade tariffs, before an appeals court temporarily halted the order, with all the implications for world economic stability you might expect.
Here to (attempt) to make sense of it all is your Weekend Wire, from Best for Britain.
Going, going, goner
Notable Substacker Dominic Cummings emerged, blinking into the light, this week to become one of the last people in the country to predict Kemi Badenoch might at some point be out of a job. The former Boris Johnson aide, perhaps best known for his lockdown-busting, eyesight-testing, all-round-bizarre Barnard Castle trip, or his refusal to use an iron, told Sky News <[link removed]> the Conservative leader “is going to go, probably this year”. People are “already organising to get rid of her, and I think that that will work. If it doesn’t work this year, it will definitely happen after next May”, he reckoned, in a not-vague-at-all forecast.
While in, what we in the biz call, a ‘wide-ranging’ (code: tried and failed to keep them on topic) interview, Cummings insisted the Tory Party “might be dead” and had possibly “crossed the event horizon” - and that he believed Reform - who he called a “a vehicle for people to say ‘we despise you’” - could win up to 150 seats at the next election with “Nigel and an iPhone”. Could the eternal disruptor possibly be interested in another stint in a top No10 job? Who can say…
Radio Free Europe
<[link removed]>One highlight of this week for Best for Britain was our chief executive Naomi Smith’s appearance on LBC’s Cross Question <[link removed]> panel show with Iain Dale, which saw her make a passionate - and common sense - case for Starmer and Ursula von der Leyen to get their heads together, deliver on the promises of the UK-EU summit and secure that much-needed growth.
For anyone who missed it, we tuned in to ensure you had all the highlights [watch below], and you can catch the episode in full here <[link removed]>.
You can also read Naomi’s views on why this matters so much in more detail in her opinion piece for Left Food Forward <[link removed]>.
In less fun news
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage delivered a speech on Tuesday packed with uncosted and divisive policies, which resulted in the National Liberal Club having to write to its members <[link removed]> after he used Royal Horseguards Hotel - also home to the club - as a venue. The twice-married <[link removed]> Clacton MP also unveiled several pro-natalist policies, including stating his belief that introducing a “transferable tax allowance between married people is the right thing to do”.
Economists at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) were quick to highlight the proposals amounted to huge tax cuts funded by vast public spending cuts, with deputy director Helen Miller warning <[link removed]> the cost of the promise to increase the income tax personal allowance to £20,000 a year “could easily be in the range of £50 to £80 billion a year”. She also stressed that Reform “is proposing a very different vision for the role of government… [of] much lower taxes, paid for with large, unspecified cuts to public services… far beyond a crackdown on waste”.
Farage challenged the Prime Minister to a debate in a “working man’s club, somewhere in the red wall”, despite the BBC reporting last year <[link removed]> that some three quarters of the venues have closed over the past 50 years. He reiterated Reform’s ‘new’ slogan - ‘family, community, country’ - and if that happens to sound familiar, you’re right. It’s the very same form of words that one Lord David Cameron was criticised for appearing to echo <[link removed]> French fascist leader Marshall Petain in 2009.
Starmer opted to hit back on Wednesday with a speech of his own at a glass factory in St Helens, Merseyside. The Prime Minister warned Farage’s plans to spend “billions upon billions upon billions… of pounds, in an unfunded way” was an “exact repeat of what Liz Truss did”.
He asked: “Can you trust him with your future? Can you trust him with your jobs… your mortgages, your pensions, your bills? And he gave the answer on Tuesday. A resounding no.”.
‘You are gold (gold)’
Alright, well, the UK’s membership of the European Economic Community (EEC) did not, in fact, prove completely indestructible. Nonetheless! This week marks the 50th anniversary, traditionally marked with that most precious of metals, of the 1975 referendum on our continued participation in the bloc.
And arguably, that spirit, of a sense of partnership, collaboration and mutual respect with our European friends and neighbours, has never felt more relevant. When it comes to the pro-Europe movement, to misquote Spandau Ballet, “always believe in your goal”
Lights, camera, motion denied!
If, like for us, Trump’s gameshow style ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs TV special was just starting to fade blissfully into the recesses of memory, then fear not. This week it came roaring back - with a vengeance - after the New York-based federal Court of International Trade blocked the President from imposing the bulk of his sweeping global import levies, following several lawsuits arguing Trump had overstepped his presidential authority.
Naturally, a day later, after the White House appealed the decision, a federal appeals court temporarily halted the order, allowing Trump to continue collecting tariffs under the emergency powers law - for now. Just another day on the reality TV style merry-go-round of [checks notes] global trade policy. Someone get Judge Judy down here…
The Poles hit the polls
On Sunday the people of Poland will choose their next President in one of the tightest election races of the decade. At stake is a fundamental decision for the Polish people as they choose between the liberal pro-European Mayor of Warsaw Rafał Trzaskowski and the far-right nationalist Karol Nawrocki.
With the President of Poland able to enact a sizable amount of political influence and drive the country's legislative agenda, Donald Tusk (the country's Prime Minister) will be hoping that Trzaskowski prevails. The election will either give Poland further legitimacy as a ‘big player’ in the EU alongside France and Germany or consign them to a more troublesome cohort alongside Hungary and Slovakia.
With opinion polling pre-election far too close to call, this one will go down to the wire. Look out for an update from Best for Britain on Monday…
Cringe Column
<[link removed]>Now for those of you not chronically online (Weekend Wire envies you), you may have missed Wall Street’s latest acronym, TACO.
But what does TACO mean? Well one (brave) journalist put it to the 47th President of the United States earlier this week. Telling the President that TACO in fact stands for ‘Trump Always Chickens Out’, in reference to the strong performance of financial markets who now no longer believe his threats of further tariffs. Cue a bemused, confused and slightly upset President.
Trump may have called such suggestions “nasty” - but this isn't the first time The Donald and Chickens have crossed paths…
This has been your Weekend Wire from Best for Britain.
Keep your eyes out next week as we mark the 50th anniversary of the 1975 EEC referendum. We’ll also be hosting the next session of the UK Trade and Business Commission (UKTBC) as our experts digest all the outcomes of the UK-EU reset summit.
Have a good one.
Jessica Frank-Keyes
Senior Press Officer
Best for Britain
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