Speaking on Breitbart News Daily after the Bow Group scored a prestigious think tank award, its chairman said the tide is turning in Washington and Westminster, observing that people with political ambitions are now lining up behind Brexit and Donald Trump.
Think tank head Ben Harris-Quinney and Breitbart London’s editor in chief Raheem Kassam, who was presenting the show, discussed the “changed face in politics” on both sides of the Atlantic, with voters in the US and UK having delivered crushing blows to the establishment in opting for president-elect Trump and Brexit, respectively.
Kassam outlined how the Bow Group were ”pariahs” and “basically outcasts” in Westminster circles in 2011, when the Cameron-led Conservative party ruled in a coalition and elites were convinced the liberal consensus of the time was unshakable. The think tank, he explained, is “unique” in its position as the “only actual Conservative” think tank operating in Britain, with others on the right having largely abandoned their principles.
Recalling Brexit leader Nigel Farage’s speech to the European parliament after Britain’s historic referendum result, Harris-Quinney and the Breitbart London editor agreed the establishment “aren’t laughing now” that people are roundly rejecting the status quo at the ballot box.
Harris-Quinney said, “We’re going to see the world change”, noting that people who bashed Trump and backed the elite consensus against Brexit are now queuing up to organise meetings with Bow Group staff they shunned not long ago.
Pointing out that people in Westminster are concerned mainly with their careers, the think tank chairman said after Trump’s stunning victory they realised, “very quickly, that the future is with organisations like the Bow Group”.
He and Kassam agreed that, as a result of this, a number of public figures are making about-turns on issues after having previously been very vocal in their support of the establishment position.
Kassam highlighted a huge U-turn made by Niall Ferguson this week, in which the prominent historian told a conference he was “wrong” to back the Remain campaign, adding: “I’ve had an awakening”. He noted Ferguson has also hugely softened his rhetoric on the topic of Trump, having spent months spewing extreme vitriol about the populist leader.
Harris-Quinney said it’s not good enough that people seeking influence with Trump, who they slammed before his landslide victory, are now backing away from those positions. Instead, the Bow Group chairman said Trump needs new people who have believed in him, and in Brexit from the start.
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