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Welcome to your Weekend Wire from Best for Britain. The past seven days saw Kemi Badenoch make her first - and perhaps last - leader’s speech at the Conservative party conference; Keir Starmer embark on a trade visit to India; and a new “existential threat” for the UK’s steel industry, with some big questions for chief Brexiteer Nigel Farage. Read on for more on all that.
On the international front, the world - forgive the cliche - held its breath, as the prospect of an end to the depthless horrors of the war in Gaza, and the return of the Israeli hostages, felt closer than ever. And across the Channel, yet more evidence why we use French to describe déjá vu.
And if you missed it, why not dive into our archive this weekend to enjoy our guest post from Emma Harrison, CEO of the campaign for proportional representation, Make Votes Matter.
So (so) much to answer for
As the Tories arrived in Manchester on Sunday for their annual “it’s not a creep convention” political conference, it didn’t take long for journalists to start pointing out the, uh, not exactly overcrowded auditoriums. Not to worry though, many mortifying moments still ensued. Check out our bumper edition of Cringe Column at the end of this post.
When it came to Kemi Badenoch’s closing speech on Wednesday, the bar was, frankly, low for the leader of the opposition. However, while some of her policy announcements did sound like they’d been spat out by TrussGPT it was her insistence that the Tories had been “brave enough to take Britain out of the European Union, honouring the biggest democratic mandate in our history” that really made us raise an eyebrow.
As Cal Roscow, campaigns director at Best for Britain, put it:
“That ‘bravery’ has been rewarded with their lowest ever poll ratings. Our polling shows the public firmly believe Brexit has been a failure for the UK, including more than twice as many Tory supporters than those who think it was a success.”
Bend it Like… Starmer?
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Meanwhile, the Prime Minister spent the rest of his parliamentary recess on a trade visit to India, accompanied by dozens of top UK CEOs, as well as film industry titans, including iconic British-Kenyan-Indian director Gurinder Chadha, of ‘Bend it Like Beckham’ fame. Amid handshakes with Indian PM Narendra Modi, Starmer confirmed that three Bollywood films are set to be made in the UK. He also visited an Indian football stadium with Premier League legend Michael Owen. After all: “Anyone can cook aloo gobi, but who can bend a ball like Beckham?”
On thornier territory, the PM also insisted he was not looking at increasing visa numbers for Indian workers in Britain. He also said that the case of Jagtar Singh Johal, the British citizen who has been locked in an Indian jail for eight years, had been raised with Modi. He told reporters that: “We did raise the consular cases. We always raised them when we have the opportunity to do so.”
However, Johal’s brother, Gurpreet Singh Johal, said: “Two days ago, the Prime Minister said he hadn’t forgotten Jagtar, but today, he didn’t even mention his name. That is hard to take.”
He added: “It would be shattering if this turns out to be more empty talk.”
Polled over
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It’s been a long old road, but it seems the impact of Brexit (spoiler: not good) on the UK is finally beginning to catch up with the Conservative Party and their ever-dwindling pool of voters.
As polling by YouGov for Best for Britain revealed this week, the Tories’ flagship policy - Brexit - has been a failure according to people intending to vote for them at the next election. They are now more than twice as likely to consider Brexit a failure (46%) compared to a success (22%).
As our Chief Executive Naomi Smith highlighted:
“Brexit has been a calamity for our economy, businesses and the cost of living. To regain economic credibility, Badenoch’s party must face up to reality and work constructively to repair the damage done to the UK.”
*We’ve got a few suggestions if they need any help with that…
Israel-Gaza latest
In what could genuinely be extremely significant news, after a series of false starts, there appears to be a realistic chance of ending the conflict - and what the world’s leading experts in the field have termed a genocide - in Gaza.
On Thursday, following days of negotiations in Egypt, US President Donald Trump said Israel and Hamas have “signed off on the first phase” of his 20-point peace plan. At time of writing, the BBC and others were reporting Israel’s military have confirmed the ceasefire is now in effect - as of 10am UK time Friday - after troops withdrew to an agreed line within 24 hours following the Israeli cabinet’s approval. Per the agreement, Hamas now has 72 hours to release all Israeli hostages, while Israel will release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Aid trucks will then enter Gaza to help the two million mostly displaced people still living there.
The development came two years and three days on from the Hamas October 7 attack on Israel in 2023, which saw more than 1,200 people killed and 251 hostages taken. Since then, Israel’s military offensive in Gaza has killed more than 67,100 people, as per the Hamas-run health ministry, whose figures are seen as accurate by the UN and other global bodies.
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[Look, if Macron can keep recycling the same material again and again, we don’t see why we can’t. So please find below a slightly amended version of the summary we shared last month.]
As Albert Einstein never said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” This week French President Emmanual Macron appointed his seventh prime minister and his 5th in the last two years saw his seventh prime minister Sébastien Lecornu resign after 27 days - only for Macron to appoint him again late last night!
With his more recent appointments lasting months (*if that) rather than years, chances are it won’t be long until we‘re back here again as France’s fifth republic becomes increasingly ungovernable. Politico dubbed it a “shambles” and the “theatre of the absurd”.
Elsewhere in Groundhog Europe, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has survived another round of no confidence votes. Cue the Gloria Gaynor - and roll on next week’s!
Down with the kids
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On Thursday, the UK Trade and Business Commission (UKTBC) hosted our latest evidence session, this time on the timely question of a youth mobility scheme with Europe. Our witnesses discussed everything from the scheme’s impact on net migration - spoiler: “roughly, not much at all” - to higher education funding, addressing skills shortages and the potential boost to the UK’s GDP.
Thanks once again to all our brilliant panelists: Brian Bell, from the Migration Advisory Group (MAG); Matthew Percival, from the Confederation of British Industry (CBI); and Charley Robinson, from Universities UK (UUK) for their time, expertise and insights.
You can watch the enlightening discussion back on the UKTBC YouTube Channel.
Blowing bubbles
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Also this week, financial experts at the IMF and Bank of England warned of the “growing risks of an AI-led market bubble bursting” - as Dan Coatsworth, head of markets at AJ Bell, phrased it.
Tech firms such as Nvidia, Google and Microsoft, who have seen share prices soar in the past year, could be at risk of a sharp drop in valuation amid potentially “disappointing” progress on artificial intelligence (AI), the Bank of England’s Financial Policy Committee (FPC) has warned.
For anyone who doesn’t speak City, think dot com bubble - or Dutch tulip mania. Basically, the bank’s top nerds are warning of something similar - and that the risk has increased. The Guardian has a helpful explainer on all this.
JP Morgan boss Jamie Dimon also told the BBC that there was a higher risk of a serious fall in US stocks, saying he was “far more worried than others” about a major market correction over the next two years.
The FPC also flagged concerns about US Federal Reserve independence which they stressed “underpins monetary and financial stability”. While Dimon admitted the US has become a “little less reliable” since Trump’s reelection.
Important note: Please (PLEASE) do not treat this newsletter as financial advice.
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Amid Trump’s tariff war, and in a bid to protect European manufacturing, the EU has proposed a new 50% levy on all steel imports above a certain quota - on all external countries.
With UK Steel branding the move “perhaps the biggest crisis” the industry has ever faced,’ one directly caused by the UK being outside the EU, questions quickly turned to chief Brexit champion: one Nigel Farage.
“This troubling development is yet another demonstration of the mounting cost of Brexit and Nigel Farage will have to explain to the steel workers he pretends to champion, how leaving the EU has benefitted them.” - Naomi Smith, CEO of Best for Britain
Cheerful News of the Week
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Nobel Prize watchers this week may have spotted that Trump did not come away with the peace gong he so covets… for now. It instead went to Venezuelan pro-democracy politician Maria Corina Machado. (He’s not the first to moan about a snub. Fun fact: In 1953, Winston Churchill [yes, that one] complained after winning the Nobel Prize… for literature.)
However, in what is genuinely great news for humankind, the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine 2025 was awarded to a team of scientists - Japan’s Shimon Sakaguchi and US researchers Mary Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell - who explained how the immune system attacks hostile infections, but not the body’s own cells. The Nobel committee highlighted how the discoveries are set to spur on new research in treating cancer and autoimmune diseases.
Almost equally brilliant were the reports the Nobel team were initially unable to notify Ramsdell who was “living his best life” hiking off grid and uncontactable in Idaho. Iconic behaviour.
And finally, in a double whammy, great news for turtlekind as the green turtle has been rescued from the brink of extinction - in a major win for global conservation efforts.
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We promised you a bumper edition of Cringe Column this week. So, in no particular order:
Chris Philp’s stand up ‘comedy’ routine at Conservative conference,
Shadow foreign secretary Priti Patel looking furious at being ignored by Kemi Badenoch,
And of course, the now-infamous misspelt chocolate wrapper, via LBC’s Natasha Clark [apologies for the X link - we try to avoid doing so wherever possible].
Keep an eye out this weekend for the Plaid Cymru and Scottish National Party (SNP) conferences. Next week Parliament will return from recess, and Tommy Robinson, aka Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, faces another court appearance.
Have a good one.
Jessica Frank-Keyes
Senior Press Officer
Best for Britain
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