Have you ever thought that the problem with Reform leader Nigel Farage is that he is not nearly right-wing enough on immigration and race? If so, Rupert Lowe has a new party for you. The former chairman of Southampton FC fell out with Farage months after being elected as Reform MP in Great Yarmouth. His new party, “Restore Britain”, pitches to those who find Farage too ‘woke’ these days.
“Millions must go” is the slogan. Campaigning for mass deportations is the party’s overriding priority. Lowe wants that “on a scale to make Donald Trump blush”. Even Farage says Lowe goes “way beyond the point of decency, reasonableness and morality”. Farage cites Lowe wanting to deport “whole communities” as why Reform had to remove him. Lowe said he wanted to deport those complicit in grooming, but saying “I suspect it would mean entire communities go” channelled anger about grooming gangs into ‘send them all back’ Pakistani-bashing tropes.
But Reform and Restore share policies that would cross that decency boundary for most people. Farage joins Lowe in threatening to deport most legal migrants who are not high earners, abolishing all past grants of permanent status, retrospectively, for migrants from outside Europe. Lowe argues that “we must discriminate” in immigration policy, with a visa-ban for Pakistan. His policy priorities include banning halal and kosher slaughter and disenfranchising Commonwealth nationals.
Restore campaign director Charlie Downes says the foundational difference is that “Reform UK believe that anyone from anywhere can become British” but “Restore believe Britain is a people defined by indigenous British ancestry and Christian faith”. That sent a clear message: ethnic minorities don’t count. Lowe’s signature response to challenges over racism has become “I don’t care”. He embraced being called “the most extreme MP” by Hope Not Hate, saying he would be “devastated” had they nominated anybody else. Lowe says he will vet defecting councillors to make sure they have “the stomach” for mass deportations, yet rejects calls to exclude overt racists.
The very first councillor to join, Maria Bowtell, has publicly backed a call to ban all black and Asian MPs from parliament, as proposed by podcaster Connor Tomlinson, another vocal champion of Restore’s cause. Lowe is championed by Elon Musk, the X owner whose obsession with racial conflict keeps accelerating. This Restore versus Reform row triggered Musk’s weirdest racist rant yet - claiming that calling Restore racist proved that Farage’s party supports “white extinction” in Britain. So those campaigning to deport all ethnic minorities chant “Rupert Lowe is our leader” and say they feel “ecstatic” at Restore rejecting calls to disavow or exclude racists, antisemites or even open Nazis from Restore membership. Racist trolls told me “Rupert will be PM” as they fantasised about Lowe turning their hate crimes and p-word slurs into remigration reality.
Nigel Farage Getty Images
Though Lowe’s launch saw online racism spiral, Restore will struggle at the ballot box. The attitudes evidence does suggest a quarter of Reform 2024 voters - one out of four million - would prefer a more overtly racist party. That toxic fringe liked the violence in the 2024 riots. But six in ten Reform 2024 voters thought the party did too little to exclude racist candidates. They would not see Britain First’s Paul Golding endorsing Lowe and pledging not to stand against him reassuring. A party with no racism boundaries at all should hit a ceiling below five per cent - losing deposits, not winning seats, eventually bringing an electoral reality check to the racist online right’s belief it speaks for Britain. How will Farage balance that electoral threat to his hardcore voters with seeing a reputational opportunity if the most extreme voices champion Restore instead?
Farage wants to double Reform’s 14 per cent vote share next time, so must persuade millions of more moderate voters that he is ready to govern, not just a single issue anti-immigration party. Farage sees his multiethnic frontbench as providing a visible reputational shield against racism charges even as they shift the party’s agenda to the right. Zia Yusuf went to Dover to declare an “invasion”, hardening Reform’s own calls for mass deportations. Suella Braverman pledges to scrap anti-discrimination laws. Outspoken former academic Matthew Goodwin has been a controversial candidate for Reform in Thursday’s Gorton and Denton by-election. Tommy Robinson’s endorsement of Goodwin is prominent on Green Party and Labour leaflets.
Yet Restore staff mocked Goodwin as representing “Reform Yookay” because turbaned Sikhs were campaigning with him. That was one more sign that Lowe looks like creating a new BNP for the online age - a project doomed to fail. Beneath this uncivil war over whether to set any boundaries to prejudice at all on the populist right, Farage and Lowe offer competing projects for how to bring Trumpism to Britain. That should be unpopular - but demands effective leadership to oppose it too.
