Malcolm Cupis: We must bring together a coalition of natural conservatives

Malcolm Cupis is a public relations consultant, strategist and writer. He stood as a Reform UK candidate in the 2024 General Election and was appointed Chairman of the Melksham and Devizes Constituency party branch. He resigned from Reform UK in February 2025 and has since rejoined the Conservative Party. 

Following the tumult of the weekend’s shenanigans at Glastonbury, there were two comparatively low-key political launches yesterday morning that passed beneath the radar of much of the media, but which are potentially highly significant for, not just the centre right of British politics, but the wider sphere.

Firstly, my good friend Ben Habib has been quietly beavering away for months now, building a political edifice that he believes fills the space between what the Conservative Party has evolved (some would say mutated) into, and what Reform has turned so many heads by promising.

The new party has been operating under the working title of Integrity, which provides a strong clue as to its priorities, but is now launched as Advance UK.

Announced at the same time was a new political initiative from another close associate, Rupert Lowe MP, who announced a cross-party movement called Restore Britain.

Advance UK promises to be a political party that reflects the mood of the overwhelming majority of British people and seeks to work for them, serve them, listen to them and fight for them. Not to rule them, dictate to them and undemocratically foist a political dogma on them.

On the face of it you might look at these things in isolation and feel a sense of bewilderment at what is, ostensibly, a further fragmentation of the centre right political landscape. It is all too easy to feel that with the Conservative Party, Reform and UKIP already established, that it is becoming ever more reminiscent of the Judean People’s Front and Peoples’ Front of Judea (if you know your Monty Python).

This is now a matter of serious concern, with the political left becoming more overt and emboldened by the day. Two tier justice is now pretty much enshrined. We have MPs expressing written support for organisations being proscribed as terrorists, condoning sabotage of vital defence assets; the national broadcaster live streaming religious hatred and threats of violence; and all the while the stream of small boats has become a flood of large ones. The economy is on the verge of complete collapse and still the government writes cheques it cannot hope to honour, including for incomprehensibly vast sums to be handed to foreign nations that we are giving up sovereign territory to.

Keir Starmer, Lord Alli, Lord Helmer, Sadiq Khan, Sky News, the BBC, The Guardian, The Glastonbury Festival, Palestine Action, Just Stop Oil, Kneecap and Bob Vylan all perfectly understand the shift in the Overton window and have figuratively chosen to put bricks through it. They now openly hold British people and our democracy in contempt.

And all the while the opposition remains not just stifled but actively engaged in internecine civil war.

The only hope of salvation lies in unity. A coalition that represents the overwhelming majority of British people who are aghast at all that is taking place but are apparently powerless to intervene.

Sad to say that there is no greater proof of this than within the Conservative Party itself, which remains so fixated on navel gazing over the recent past that it is apparently unable to confront the realities of what is happening now and look forward to a better future.

The responses to stories on this website prove a constant and rather depressing reminder. The Conservative Party is not losing voters to the Liberal Democrats and to the Labour Party. It is losing them to Reform. It is losing them to Reform because Reform reflects the public mood on all of the biggest issue. That is where the Overton window now exists. That is where the political opportunity lies.

And still we read constant commentary of social democrat pseudo-conservatives demanding that the cure for all of the ills that have befallen the Conservative Party in recent years is a final fatal dose of the poison that that has led it to where it is.

Nigel Farage is a master opportunist who has built a distinguished political career of seizing the public mood, grabbing all the headlines, generating support and delivering absolutely nothing. He is the opposite of what this country desperately needs right now. He has absolutely no intention of being collegiate or of building a coalition. He is a destructor, not a constructor. He sees himself as a president, a dictator and a supreme leader, not a Prime Minister. He seeks domination, he does not offer salvation.

In doing that he continually leaves in his wake a trail of disillusioned, disappointed and disengaged people who are almost always capable, credible and committed. Farage ultimately cannot hide from the truth and this is the truth. Followers will be seduced into all that he promises. They will walk the yellow brick road and will ultimately pull back the curtain and find the truth.

Ben Habib and Rupert Lowe are among many who have found this truth and I regard myself as another. Ben Habib and Rupert Lowe understand the true level of what this country has sunk to and the immediate, existential threat the nation faces.

Ben Habib and Rupert Lowe, like me, are natural conservatives. They would be the first to say that there should be no need to UKIP, Reform, Advance UK or Restore Britain. If we had an effective Conservative Party that remained committed to its core values then there would be no need for any of this and they, like me, would gladly serve it.

But time isn’t just running out, time has all but gone and the window of opportunity to provide the necessary remedies, politically, socially and economically, is now barely ajar. Responsible conservatives cannot wait a moment longer.

If, after all that has happened, after all that we have seen, after the all the threats we have endured which have been exponentially turned to our current political realities, the Conservative Party remains so riven, so inert in the face of deliberately engineered internal strife, so unable to recognise the level of threat and the anger and dismay of the British people, then sadly it deserves the fate that it faces. What that means though is that the British people are abandoned to their inevitable fate as a consequence.

In the face of this it falls on responsible, patriotic and determined individuals to face the truth and offer whatever they can in providing a last-ditch route to salvation.

The time is now. We need that leadership and that resolve now. Not tomorrow. Not diluted by more of the poison that has led us to this point. The Conservative Party must act now. It must bring together the best of the best to save Britain now. It must reconnect with the British people now. Nigel Farage can see it. Ben Habib and Rupert Lowe can see it. The Conservative Party must see it and it must act on it. And it must do it now. It cannot wait a moment longer.