Reform UK launches Wellingborough by-election campaign with battle bus, handshakes and show of strength from candidate Ben Habib

Reform UK has launched its campaign for the Wellingborough by-election by bussing-in supporters to welcome party leader Richard Tice and candidate Ben Habib into the town on Saturday.

Arriving on an open-top double-decker bus to the pro-Brexit party’s new town centre HQ, Reform UK activists were fresh from being given a rallying call by the leadership team.

Speaking to the Northants Telegraph, Mr Tice and Mr Habib said the mainstream parties had let the country down and they would bring back prosperity to the UK and Wellingborough.

Mr Habib, Reform UK’s deputy leader, said he would transform parliamentary debate offering a platform for the people of the constituency.

He said: “I will be a voice for Wellingborough in parliament. I would transform the way debate is done in parliament – I would take the fight to the Conservative Party someone needs to take Rishi Sunak to task. What the people in this constituency want is for their interests to be put ahead of international interests. They want decisions to be made in their interest."

Taking a break from the campaign trail enjoying a cup of tea in a sunny Market Street, Mr Tice, who grew up in Teeton, said his party and candidate wanted to bring back prosperity to the area.

He said: “It’s a great town that’s sadly been let down by mismanagement and Rushden Lakes has had a big negative effect on the town centre that the council hasn’t got to grips with.”

One of Reform UK’s policies is to abolish business rates and replace it with an on-line delivery tax – to ‘level the playing field’.

Asked if he thought they could over-turn the Conservative majority and see-off Labour at the by-election, Mr Habib was positive.

He said: “I think we have a genuine chance of winning here. Peter Bone had a thumping majority in the last election in 2019, which was a Brexit election, and he got 32,000 votes, Labour got 13,000 – with a 64 per cent turnout. You’re going to get a much smaller turnout (at the by-election), the Labour vote will probably go down because there’ll be a lower turnout. What’s left of Peter’s (Bone) vote is going to be extremely disillusioned with the Conservative Party because they didn’t deliver Brexit.”

Asked how he would improve life for residents he said: “If the nation isn’t doing well then no constituent part of the nation can do well. It is absolutely critical that the country changes direction and first and foremost we’ve got to get rid of this sense of dependency – instil aspiration in the people – and we’ve got to get rid of this idea of wealth redistribution and get back on the path of wealth creation.

“You can do that very quickly by reducing the tax burden on the working and middle classes, reduce the tax burden on businesses. It’s got to pay to work.”

Mr Habib, 58, also promised to stop the drive to achieve ‘net zero’, instead championing fossil fuels to make the UK self sufficient until alternatives are developed which would be a ‘long time’ in the future.

As the two Reform UK leaders were meeting residents and shaking well-wishers’ hands and posing for selfies, another political party, Britain First, were also on the campaign trail in another battle ‘bus’ – a white van with security mesh windows, a loudspeaker blaring their pre-recorded ‘stop the boats’ message to shoppers.

Mr Habib admitted he’d ‘never heard’ of Britain First but said his party shared the ambition of ‘stopping the boats’ and that ‘illegal migration shouldn’t take place’.

Born in Karachi to an English mother and Pakistani father, Mr Habib moved to England in 1979. He said if elected he would ‘dramatically slash’ ‘rampant’ immigration.

He said: “I’m not pulling up the drawbridge. I’m British through and through. I’m incredibly proud of my Pakistani heritage. The problem with the UK is not immigration, it’s the speed and the vast quantities of immigration. The country can’t cope with the rampant immigration that we’ve had. I don’t care what colour someone is. I don’t care what their religion is. I don’t care where they came from, what their sexual preferences are – all I care about is that we have a harmonious, homogenous society, where people who come in from abroad are integrated properly, where we don’t practise multi-culturalism in silos.”

With another four weeks until election day, Mr Habib revealed that he plans to move to the area for the remainder of the campaign until the voters go to the polls when he hopes to replace disgraced ex-MP Peter Bone.

Speaking of the former MP he added: “I don’t know Peter Bone. He was a Brexiteer, had he been a genuine Conservative, he should have left (the party).”

The Wellingborough constituency by-election will see voting take place on Thursday, February 15.