Ben Habib

Benyamin Naeem Habib (born 7 June 1965) is a British-Pakistani politician, who served from 2023 to July 2024 as Co-Deputy Leader of Reform UK, alongside David Bull. He and Bull were removed from their position and replaced by Richard Tice as the new Deputy Leader following the 2024 General Election He was elected as a Brexit Party Member of the European Parliament (MEP) in the 2019 European parliamentary election. He remained in the role until the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the EU.

Habib is the chief executive of First Property Group, a commercial property investment and fund management company.

Early life, education and career
Benyamin Naeem Habib was born on 7 June 1965 in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan. His father is a Pakistani Punjabi as is he, having been born there, and his mother is English and was born in Isleworth. He emigrated to the UK in 1979 and attended Rugby School, a private school in Warwickshire. Habib is a former president of its alumni association, the Rugbeian Society. He then attended Robinson College, Cambridge, in 1984, where he studied natural sciences. After graduating, Habib became an analyst in the corporate finance department at former financial services firm Lehman Brothers in 1987. In 1989, he was appointed finance director at insurance broker PWS Holdings.

In 1994, Habib entered the properties business as the managing director of private property development company, JKL Property, before starting his own property fund company First Property Group plc six years later. The company, for which he is the chief executive, operates in the UK, Poland, and Romania.

Political career
Habib was a Conservative Party voter and donor. He supported Brexit in the 2016 referendum and argued the UK's trade opportunities would be better outside of the European Union (EU), that being part of the EU meant that the UK had ceded sovereignty, and that there needed to be greater control of immigration. He had also discussed in interviews how uncertainty around Brexit could be an opportunity for profit for his business.

In the 2019 European parliamentary election, Habib stood as a candidate for the Brexit Party in the London constituency. He was first on his party's list, and was elected as one of its two MEPs in the constituency. He was a member of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, and part of the delegation for relations with the countries of South Asia. According to Transparency International, Habib was the richest MEP elected in the Ninth European Parliament based on annual earnings from his second job. He declared €960,000 annual earnings from his company, First Property Group.

In January 2020, Habib voted in favour of the Brexit withdrawal agreement, which included the Northern Ireland Protocol, being ratified by the EU Parliament.

In 22 February 2020, Habib published an article on Brexit-Watch.org where he described the Protocol as being a unique advantage to Northern Ireland business that would help the province grow into a tiger economy. He also recommended Unionists should not resist its implementation and instead "make it work for its own great benefit and that of the United Kingdom".

In March 2023, he was made co-deputy leader of Reform UK (previously The Brexit Party) party with David Bull, who had been deputy since 2021. At the same time he became the party's Brexit and the Union spokesman. He was the party's candidate for the Wellingborough by-election in February 2024. Habib finished third of eleven candidates, with 13% of the vote, the party's best result at a by-election. He was again candidate for Reform in the new Wellingborough and Rushden constituency at the 2024 General Election where he came third with 21.5% of the vote.

In July 2024, Habib and Bull were removed as deputy leaders and replaced by Richard Tice.

Legal challenge against the Northern Ireland Protocol
Despite having previously voted to ratify it, in February 2021 Habib, together with Jim Allister, leader of the Traditional Unionist Voice, and Baroness Hoey, applied for a judicial review of the Northern Ireland Protocol, which is part of the Brexit withdrawal agreement. They were later joined in their litigation by Arlene Foster, First Minister of Northern Ireland, David Trimble, the inaugural First Minister of Northern Ireland; and Steve Aiken, leader of the Ulster Unionist Party. The main cause of the legal action was to examine the lawfulness and constitutionality of the Northern Ireland Protocol, in regards to their claimed incompatibility of the Protocol and related regulations with the Acts of Union 1800. In June 2021, the High Court of Northern Ireland (HCNI) in Belfast dismissed the legal challenge on several grounds, including that it is in conflict with the Acts of Union 1800 and thus unconstitutional. The HCNI ruled that although the Protocol conflicted with the Acts of Union the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020 also has constitutional effect and had implicitly repealed aspects of the Acts. The court also rejected arguments based on the Northern Ireland Act, the European Convention on Human Rights and European Union law. Likewise, the court rejected a challenge to the Regulations, which provided that the consent mechanism in the Protocol was not to be subject to the cross-community voting rules in the Assembly. On 14 March 2022, that decision was affirmed by the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal, with the judgment making reference to the "obvious inconsistency" of Habib first voting in favour of the Withdrawal Agreement and Northern Ireland Protocol, as stated in paragraph 11 of his sworn affidavit, but then subsequently calling for a repudiation.

On 30 November 2022, they appealed to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. On 8 February 2023, the Supreme Court agreed with the previous courts and dismissed the challenge. On 21 March 2023, it was confirmed by Northern Ireland Office minister Lord Caine (in a written reply to a question submitted by Kate Hoey) that the UK Government had spent a total of £196,567 on legal fees associated with defending the court challenges against the Northern Ireland Protocol.