The Makerfield by-election matters hugely. Not only is Andy Burnham seeking a return to Parliament, he will also likely become prime minister if he succeeds at defeating Reform in the contest. The stakes could not be higher. Which makes the impact of Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain particularly important. With Labour and Reform neck and neck in the polls, Restore’s estimated 7 per cent of the vote share could split the right-wing vote enough to carry Burnham to victory. Now, more than ever, it seems a good time to try and understand what Restore stands for. But after attempting to do so this past week, I’m not sure I succeeded.
This was supposed to have been an interview with Rebecca Shepherd, Restore’s candidate for Makerfield. It isn’t, and I hope you will allow me a few words to explain why before I move on to the meat of this piece. Last Monday, shortly after Shepherd was announced as Restore’s candidate, I contacted the party’s press team. Would Rebecca be interested in an interview? If so, I thought it could run in The Spectator. They responded quickly with a yes. They were particularly excited about The Spectator publishing the interview.
‘I’ve never said we should deport whole communities. What I have said is create a hostile environment and if we have to pay these people some money to go home’
But then things became rather strange. First, the party said Rebecca was too busy to do the interview. Then they said she needed some media training and asked if I like to interview Rupert Lowe in the meantime? Rebecca would definitely be available in a few days after she got ‘some proper coaching’, they told me. I agreed to interview Rupert. Then I was told that Rebecca was taking a couple of days off so wouldn’t be available after all. In the end I was only able to interview Rupert Lowe.
Things became more confusing when I spoke to Lowe on the phone. He seemed to think that the press is denying his party coverage and that The Spectator in particular is anti-Restore. Lowe asked me: ‘Why do you think, David, most of the media has been completely ignoring what we’re doing? I mean, most of my friends who aren’t on social media had no idea we’d won Great Yarmouth [in the local elections].’ He seemed genuinely curious.
I suggested the fact that Restore never send out press releases might be one reason. I also said that Rebecca Shepherd is an interesting candidate but there’s ‘a perception online that Restore is the party of young right wing men’.
Lowe told me he didn’t think that was ‘a fair criticism’, noting that:
‘There was this spate of accusations of ethnonationalism and all this sort of rubbish. But you know I can’t and won’t audit who supports us, but I can assure you the actual structure of the party has none of that in it. The party is founded on common sense. It’s logic. It’s common sense. You know, I run multiple businesses, I see how deficient the state is, I see how poorly its serving its electorate and constituents…I see the sort of headwinds that we all face in order to create wealth…you see all this Angela Rayner rubbish, the Renters Rights Act, it’s just meant they’re always being booted out of their houses, why would you let your house? Nobody’s letting their houses. Your mate Gove started that by the way. I mean he was very unsound in that area.’
I tried to explain that I’m a freelancer, and do not know the editor socially. Without pause, Lowe moved on to The Spectator’s upcoming summer party, telling me: ‘I got an invitation [today] and look I love Rod Liddle, I love some of the people who write for you… some of them I don’t agree with but you know a lot of them are interesting people. But no, I think the mainstream media has been a mystery to me but what I can conclude is that they’re all part of this deficient establishment and they want to keep control of it.’
I suggested that allowing or encouraging Rebecca Shepherd to be interviewed by The Spectator might be a good way for Restore to be covered more in the mainstream media. Lowe told me he would use his ‘best endeavours’, but that he wasn’t ‘promising’ anything. Shepherd is ‘extremely authentic’, he told me, and ‘her time is better spent with her local electorate’ than ‘a Spectator that has ignored us’ which might not be ‘the right place for her to be doing a big interview’.
I started to explain that Restore’s own press team had wanted the interview to be published in The Spectator, but he interrupted me to say that ‘I couldn’t understand when I came to your awards, what the hell were you doing giving an award to Lord Hermer and to Lucy Powell?’.
I hadn’t realised that Lowe wasn’t keen on The Spectator.
‘I’m not, not keen on it David, it just hasn’t really covered us at all…I know Michael, I know there’s a cabal of people like him, James Orr, other people and I’ve nothing against him. I mean the Telegraph I used to write for, they don’t cover us at all…obviously GB News is the Nigel Farage broadcasting corporation…I used to be on there a lot but not anymore. They find it hard to even mention my name but in a way it plays to my advantage, because if people actually then want to find out what we’re doing they have to come on to our social media, and it just makes us even stronger, because as you know our social media is massive now…our distribution is almost bigger than the newspapers now. In a way it plays to my advantage them ignoring me. I don’t mind at all. In fact it doesn’t mean I have to spend time talking to them. It just saves my time. At the end of the day I’m not bothered by it. And I think in a way the public can see it. I personally thought the result we got in Great Yarmouth was one of the most politically significant results we’ve had for a very long time, but it hardly got any coverage.’
We began to discuss Restore, and their chances in the Makerfield by-election. ‘I follow the bookies David…we’ve got tremendous momentum’. He pointed to Restore’s recent success in Great Yarmouth, where ‘Farage said we’d be lucky to get 1 per cent’, ‘you could have halved all of our candidates votes, and they’d still have won’, with the partying taking ‘nine out of nine’ county council seats. Lowe credits this to the party’s canvassing, noting that on one day Restore had ‘500 people’ come to campaign for the insurgent party. He believes that these supporters are drawn by him ‘speaking the truth in parliament, which hasn’t happened in a very long time’. That truth, according to Lowe is that Britain is ‘in bad shape’, and ‘people have given up voting’.
He believes that these disenchanted voters are the secret to Restore’s success, saying ‘the interesting thing is that in Great Yarmouth we brought people back to vote who hadn’t voted for a very long time and they were enthusiastic about voting because I think the majority of British people can see quite how badly they’ve been governed, quite what a fraud Parliament has become, and you’re probably aware I fought a judicial review against Parliament which I lost, I think because the state leant on the judge…all these judges in my view are now, you know, they’ve been undermined by the Blairite creation of the Supreme Court which means it’s become a sort of woke quango and you know, really, the judge was in my view sinful by omission, in that he wrote his judgment, but he completely ignored most of the arguments that we made.’
Returning to the by-election, Lowe told me that ‘Rebecca is exactly the sort of candidate we want. She’s brave, she’s a local businesswoman, she’s had issues with the local council. She was at the heart of the community. She ran a riding school for a long time. She then had an issue with the Labour council, who make life very difficult for honest tax paying British citizens in bringing all these nonsensical licensing rules, and you need a licence for getting insurance and to practice. Well some gnome from the council turned up and told her that her muck heap was too close to the stables, so she then applied to the same council to move the muckheap and they refused her permission…and as a result of that she had to close the riding school which did a lot for the community on a non-profit basis and she’s had to turn it in to a livery yard.’ Lowe added: She’s brave, she’s 52, she’s local, she’s played a part in the local community, she’s exact, she’s from outside politics, like the rest of us she’s had enough of the nonsense.’
I asked Lowe how he’d counter arguments that Restore risks splitting the right-wing vote and helping Andy Burnham win the by-election. He said that ‘if people think that they can always stand down can’t they…I think we’ve seen peak Reform, I think we saw it on May 7th…and I say to them I think Restore is bringing back to politics people who haven’t been voting for a very long time, and the Fabian Starmer won his election on a 59 per cent turnout, on 35 per cent of [the vote] so I call it a landslip election victory which he had, and if you can bring back, the people who will win are the ones who can bring back, because in the past your average voting turnout was probably 80 per cent for the general election, so we’ve probably lost at least 21 per cent of the electorate who’ve just become completely disaffected with the nonsense that goes on in parliament, in the judiciary and local government…so if somebody can bring back that 21 per cent, they’re the people who you should be supporting because they’re going to win the election. So scrapping around for a few Reform votes or Tory votes or quite frankly how anyone can vote Labour after the rape gang scandal, I do not know. I mean they have presided over the most pervasive evil that has ever hit Britain ever.’
Restore are often perceived as being far more radical on migration (and remigration) than Reform. So it was helpful that Lowe clarified his position on this, telling me that he’s ‘never said…whole communities of British passport holders’ should be deported, rather that: ‘those arriving illegally, those living here illegally, those foreign criminals in our prisons… [and] those who are not contributing economically to our country…we work out a deal, having made it a hostile environment… [but] I’ve never said we should deport whole communities. What I have said is create a hostile environment and if we have to pay these people some money to go home…’ (Much of this is indistinguishable from Reform’s policies on migration, and if anything Farage’s party have promised to go further – with a deportation command and daily deportation flights).
‘Why do you think, David, most of the media has been completely ignoring what we’re doing? I mean, most of my friends who aren’t on social media had no idea we’d won Great Yarmouth’
Lowe continued, ‘we have to abide by the law, even if…the law, the judiciary, the solicitors, the whole legal profession is just now about enriching itself. It is not about providing an honest, decent service and upholding the rule of law…which is why I say don’t go to the civil courts because we don’t have the rule of law – it’s a waste of your time and you’re better off to do business with people you trust on a handshake.’
When I asked Lowe what would happen if there’s a change of Labour leadership and the government’s plan to extend the time before someone can claim Indefinite Leave to Remain does not happen, resulting in the Boriswave being allowed to settle, all Lowe would say is that ILR is ‘a shocking business, and we’ll obviously have to turn our mind to it but…I think getting down into the weeds on everything at this stage is not what we need to do.’ In contrast, Reform have committed to abolishing ILR entirely.
So, on mass deportations, I suggested to Lowe that Reform have moved a lot closer to Restore’s position in the last year. He told me that he’s ‘not really interested in Reform. I would have helped Nigel become prime minister but I don’t think he is fit to become prime minister. My personal opinion is that he is managed opposition. I think that if you look at the mainstream media, it is now pushing Nigel… so I’m not really interested in Reform’.
And his prediction for the by-election? ‘We can win it. Reform’s candidate is poor quality and when our rape gang report comes out in early June, a vote for Labour is a vote for evil.’ Only time will tell.
Comments