Nigel Farage has always prided himself on being able to see off any threat from his right flank. But now a new force has emerged in the form of his ex-colleague Rupert Lowe. When the two Reform MPs fell out 15 months ago, friends shared memes of Farage’s past fallen rivals ascending to heaven. ‘Come and join us, Rupert!’ they exhorted. Instead, Lowe fought back, setting up his own party, Restore Britain. In the Makerfield by-election on 18 June, one poll puts Restore on 7 per cent– enough to stop Reform and hand the seat to Labour’s Andy Burnham.
Restore’s strategy is simple: use Farage’s playbook against him. Like Farage, Lowe has put his faith in social media, building up a noisy following that can then be turned into a campaigning force. The picture Lowe presents to his 780,000 followers on X is a more pugnacious version of the content he pumps out to his 1.3 million fans on Facebook. Lowe’s posts demanding mass deportation and the banning of the burka are mixed with smiling images of him pottering about the farm. For some supporters, Lowe embodies an old-fashioned 1980s-style Tory – a more respectable choice, in their eyes, than the shop-soiled Farage.
Many of Restore’s new members are a mix of the dejected and rejected. Some are former Reform councillors who quit after feeling unappreciated. Others have lost faith with Farage, believing that he has softened his stance. Unsurprisingly, avowed racists and nationalists have signed up to Restore too, including Steve Laws, who campaigns for the deportation of everyone in Britain with non-white heritage. ‘We do not endorse our members’ opinions,’ says a Restore spokesman: ‘they endorse our position.’
Lowe’s operation is led by Alistair Harrison, his press handler. ‘It all funnels through Alistair,’ says one colleague. Harrison and Liam Porter, his number two, are both former Kippers who spent years in Brussels. They are aided by a Restore team of around a dozen who tend to be young, male and extremely online. Among them are Charlie Downes, a longtime activist who has worked with the Tories and Reform, Lewis Brackpool, a lover of data transparency requests, and Harrison Pitt, a New Culture Forum fellow.
Restore’s strategy is simple: to use Nigel Farage’s playbook against him
Much of Team Restore was previously Team Reform. The relationship between the two parties is extremely bitter, reflecting the fraught circumstances in which their two leaders, Farage and Lowe, fell out with each other. Lowe was infuriated that Reform referred him to the police in March 2025, after alleged ‘verbal threats’ against the then party chairman Zia Yusuf. Various other reasons have since been cited for the fallout, including Lowe’s hardline rhetoric on mass deportations of immigrants (‘Millions must go’). He and his team are now determined to wreak havoc on Reform. In the small world of Westminster, supporters of both sides rub shoulders at the same social events, trading barbs online and clashing at watering holes like the Marquis of Granby pub.
Restore rejects the distinction between the online space and ‘the real world’. ‘We are the only political party in Britain that fully understands and harnesses this technology,’ says Downes, who says Lowe ‘feels the same way as me about the decline of our country… That is why I have staked my personal and professional reputation on making him [Lowe] prime minister.’ He argues Restore is the ‘last shot’ for a ‘peaceful return to normality’ after ‘decades of madness’.
The ecosystem of the ‘online right’ had its origins in ‘Gamergate’, a decade-old controversy about feminism in the video-game industry. Similarly, American gamers are among those now giving Lowe a wave of support. Zack Hoyt, known as Asmongold, is one of the world’s most popular streamers. A fan of World of Warcraft and Minecraft, he gushes about Lowe to his four million subscribers: ‘This guy’s talking fucking real shit! He’s saying it! Bro, what the fuck, this is amazing… I’ll tell you this, right, if I was in Britain, I’d vote for this guy.’
Such messaging has taken off in America thanks to Elon Musk. The X owner has spent months pushing pro-Lowe content to his 240 million followers. Musk’s algorithmic juice means that the independent backbencher for Great Yarmouth is now a prominent figure on the American right. Tucker Carlson has hosted Lowe on his show. Farage, who is proud of his Washington contacts, is now seen as an outmoded figure by some Gen Z and Gen Alpha MAGA types. ‘The political spectrum has evolved beyond his own views and I think that he should step aside and let these new people take the reins instead,’ says Asmongold.
Last month’s local elections were the first test for Lowe’s initiative. In the nine wards of his home patch on Norfolk County Council, he fielded nine candidates for Restore’s offshoot movement ‘Great Yarmouth First’. Each was victorious, trouncing Reform. No longer could Farage’s aides confidently scoff that: ‘They haven’t even won a parish council.’ Winning elsewhere will prove much harder, but with a supposed membership of 125,000, Lowe’s party can swamp a seat like Makerfield. Asked why they chose to stand here, but not in the Aberdeen by-election, a Restore spokesman claims: ‘We can win in Makerfield. We can’t win in Scotland yet.’
‘Thousands’ of activists have canvassed in Makerfield, according to Downes. The Premier Inn in Wigan has certainly done a roaring trade, with Restore Britain members swaggering around the premises in their branded T-shirts. At one point police were called to Reform’s campaign office after a verbal altercation involving alleged Restore activists. Labour, meanwhile, is keen to talk up Restore at every opportunity in the hopes of splitting the right-wing vote. ‘Good for us in this election, very bad for the country,’ remarks one aide.
Polling for More in Common suggests that most Britons have heard of Restore Britain but do not know much about the party. Three in five say they are aware of it but 73 per cent admit to not even knowing that Lowe is the leader. The risk for Reform is that those most aware of Restore are Farage’s 2024 voters. In the pollster Luke Tryl’s words: ‘With higher awareness, Restore could take ground from those who are unhappy with Reform’s red line on figures like Tommy Robinson who promote prejudice, and want a more explicitly ethno-nationalist politics.’
There are different shades of opinion within Reform about Restore. Most view the party as an irritant, but some see certain benefits. ‘It made us up our game,’ admits one figure, ‘because we had someone to the right of us. I think it’s actually made it clearer about what we want.’ Restore’s rise is cited as a factor in Reform’s deadline for Tory defections. Others in the party hope Restore will act as flypaper, ridding Reform of its worst elements. One Reformer estimates that up to 50 of the party’s councillors elected last month will eventually defect to Restore.
Some on Farage’s team accuse the Tories of seeking to boost Lowe’s chances to split Reform’s vote. The Tory whips did give Lowe a seat on the Public Accounts Committee last October. But Rosie Duffield and Sammy Wilson, two other non-Tories, have also been given places on other panels. That said, ‘the Tory party has every interest in keeping the concept of Restore as alive as possible’, admits one ex-spad.
For some Tories, the feeling is simply one of schadenfreude. For years they warned that Farage was splitting the right-wing vote to let in the left; now it is his turn to rail against Restore. ‘Reform are using language about Restore that the Tory party used against Reform 18 months ago,’ reflects one MP. Farage is grappling with the same problem that afflicts all big coalitions: keeping radical elements onside while not alienating new voters. His strident response this week to the murder of Henry Nowak is one such case. Farage demanded that the Attorney General review the sentence of Nowak’s killer, Vickrum Digwa. Lowe went further, suggesting he should be ‘put to death’.
How best to deal with this new threat from the right? Officially, Reform is determined to ignore Restore and is confident it will lose its deposit in Makerfield. Reform has only once acknowledged its rival’s existence on its official accounts, tweeting: ‘Vote Restore, Get Labour’. But outriders such as Matt Goodwin, Reform’s unsuccessful candidate for Gorton and Denton, have delighted in taking the fight to Restore online. Nadine Dorries, meanwhile, attacked Lowe’s Makerfield candidate in her Daily Mail column for having ‘the intellectual capacity of Katie Price crossed with Rebekah Vardy’.
For Lowe, the challenges of keeping a very online, outspoken party together are obvious. But as Restore’s prominence grows, he will face increasing pressure to disavow comments his activists have made. One recent flashpoint was the cancellation of a speaking slot for a ‘Remigration’ activist, Saskia Teague, after she posted ‘White. British. Proud.’ A party founded in the belief that Reform is insufficiently robust on immigration will inevitably struggle to keep its base onside. The subject of Israel is one such flashpoint: after Lowe backed the proscription of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, he attracted flak online from supposed Restore supporters for being a ‘Zionist’. ‘They will 100 per cent lose my vote if they start simping for Jews,’ wrote one.
Farage is now seen as an outmoded figure by some Gen Z and Gen Alpha MAGA types
There are various legal pitfalls which come with running a political party. Any failure to handle racist allegations appropriately risks an inquiry by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), along the lines of that which the Labour party suffered over anti-Semitism in 2019. ‘The EHRC receives complaints each week about allegations of unlawful activity contrary to the Equality Act 2010,’ says a spokesman. ‘We consider each complaint carefully and take action where appropriate.’
Then there is Lowe himself. Aged 68, he must do in a decade what Farage managed in three. His rival has withstood 30 years of muckraking and press sleuthing. Is Lowe ready for the same? He is already the subject of an ongoing investigation by parliament’s watchdog into a complaint made against him. His fellow MPs admit that they struggle to reconcile the nature of his online posts with the more clubbable character they see around the estate. One example they give is how Lowe likes to bound up to the Labour MP Henry Tufnell, a lifelong friend, jokingly call him ‘Tuffers!’ and try to ruffle his hair. Some of Lowe’s critics suggest he isn’t fully aware of what’s being put out on social media under his name. Restore denies this. ‘Of course Rupert’s absolutely involved in it – it’s his Twitter account,’ says a spokesman.
The challenge of building a new party is immense. Recent years are littered with failed examples: Your Party, Change UK, Alba. Restore Britain may well amount to nothing more than a spoiler party – but in Makerfield, that could be enough. If Rupert Lowe hands Andy Burnham victory, there will be a bitter irony in Reform’s defeat. So many of the same tools which Farage has wielded effectively over the years – the internet, American influence, bombastic rhetoric, earnest young men – are now being used against him on the right.
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