Robert Jenrick is an act and I'll expose the reasons why - Ben Habib

Now he resembles a skinhead in a suit. At this rate of conversion he will soon be wearing leathers and doc martins, sporting tattoos and all.

No, Jenrick is not credible. His is an act. He is taking his place alongside a long line of Tory leaders who say one thing and do another.

Such loose associations with the truth are what got us into the mess we are in and frankly why ordinary businessmen like me have been forced into politics.

Some of the Tory faithful may take heart from this version of Jenrick but his newfound ideology is wafer thin.

Jenrick is part of the problem; not the solution.

And, even if I am wrong, and he is further right than Nigel Farage, his party will not wear him.

The broad Tory church is a mixture of opposing views. Faux Jenrick may appeal to most of the membership but not many of his fellow MPs and even amongst the membership he will have plenty of opposition.

Jenrick will be out of fashion as fast as his false conversion. The problem with the Tories is not just Jenrick. It is the Tory party itself.

The leadership is a sideshow compared to the issue at stake. The Tory party has no real identity. It stands for nothing which true conservatives would recognise.

Nor does it appeal to those who might be minded to vote Liberal Democrat. In the pursuit of being all things to all people it has rendered itself as nothing.

The challenge for the Tory party is not just finding a leader that can unite them, as challenging as that might be. It is finding a heart and soul. What is the Tory party?

Once the leadership contest is behind it, the party will again be riven by squabbling factions while it seeks to address that central question. Until it does, the electorate will not trust them. I fully expect the Tories to take yet another thumping in the local elections next year.

Reform UK need do nothing to respond to any new Tory leadership. The threat to Reform is not from the Tory party.

The challenge facing Reform is whether it can morph from an insurgent to a mainstream contender for government in time for 2029 (or earlier) and do so without losing its identity.

Readers may be familiar with the campaign I fought for the democratisation of the party. I saw and see this as essential to its prospects of success. In the end, Reform somewhat dodged my pressure and adopted a constitution which had been rejected nearly two years ago.

As it stands, that is a poor document but let’s see how it plays out. Maybe the scrutiny to which Reform will naturally be subject will be enough to do the trick. We shall see.

There is also the showing of a newer risk to Reform which I had not seen before.

In its pursuit of becoming mainstream, it seems to be diluting some of its messaging. There has been some rowing back, for example, in its views on our changing demography and how it would tackle illegal migration. It is also apparently turning a blind eye to the fact we never got Brexit.

The vote to leave the EU is the bedrock on which Reform UK was founded. It was the cry from the British people to have policies made with the national and their interests at heart that created the political space for Reform.

The Tories did not fill that space. People like Jenrick betrayed the Brexit vote. We never got Brexit and so Reform exists.

But there is a reluctance in Reform to recognise that Brexit was not done and that battle still needs fighting.

There is seemingly little recognition that Northern Ireland was left behind in the EU and needs rescuing. Or that most of Reform’s policies cannot be delivered without first doing just that.

At the end of the day, the schism in British politics is not between left and right. That is a quaint but wrong notion. The schism is between those that would govern as globalists, being the Labour party, Liberal Democrats and most of the Tory party; and those that would put first the UK. Starmer is intent on reversing whatever little Brexit we did get.

He is the threat to which Reform must respond.

Reform stands for an independent, sovereign, democratic and prosperous United Kingdom with its interests being protected and promoted. That can only happen if Reform fights to Get Brexit Done.