Rupert Lowe forms breakaway party, woos Tory fans

One of the biggest criticisms of Reform is that it’s just a rebrand of the Tory Party. Now, ex-Reform MP Rupert Lowe has created his own spinoff party, and it’s shaping up to be…a rebrand of a rebrand:

And as Lowe himself has said, he’s open to attracting talent from the Tories, Reform, Advance — basically any reactionary party you can think of. Furthermore, Rupert Lowe seems intent on expanding his political circle.

Rupert Lowe: From Reform to Restore

The timeline of Lowe leaving Reform is messy. The TLDR is:

• Lowe began criticising Farage (seemingly in coordination with Elon Musk).
• Farage suggested Lowe wouldn’t be anywhere near office without Nigel’s cult of personality (a.k.a. Reform).
• Reform suspended Lowe and reported him to the police for ‘verbal threats’ and “serious bullying” of female staffers.
• Lowe described the accusations as “vexatious”.
• Several months of back and forth ensued.

With someone like Lowe, it’s better to have them on the inside pissing out than on the outside pissing in. Now, Farage is going to learn why that saying exists.

Lowe announced his new party in a SEVEN MINUTE LONG video on Twitter/X:

We’re not watching all that, but we’re glad for him, or sorry that happened.

Remember when Twitter used to be about brevity? This is how long the average Rupert Lowe tweet is now:

By the way, we can’t ignore the fact that Lowe’s ‘Reform’ rival is going to be called ‘Restore’.

Does he not understand his main weakness is going to be voters literally just getting the names mixed up?

Some of what Lowe says in the announcement video is worth being aware of – particularly this section:

I’m now going to dedicate my life to finding, organising, funding and providing hundreds of qualified candidates to present to the British people at the next general election. This process has already started. with invitations being issued to patriots in aligned political parties: Reform, the Conservatives, the SDP, Advance, and more.

In local politics, we will work in partnership with localised political parties such as Great Yarmouth First that have the best interests of their residents at heart, combining our forces at the next general election.

The men and women standing for Restore in that election will not be politicians. I promise you that.

They will not be failed ministers.

They will not be tainted by failures of the past.

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They will be from business, from the military, from science, from medicine, from education, from industry, representing real communities up and down the country. Every single one will be from well outside the existing political establishment and every single one will understand the difficult decisions that need to be taken.

While we can’t say who Restore will run for office, we can say the party is already attracting the dregs of British politics.

Rejects

Firstly, we should note it’s not just British dregs; the South Yank-frican billionaire Elon Musk is also behind the project:

If you spend any time on Musk’s platform, you’ll know Lowe gets boosted six ways from Sunday on there. This, of course, is because Nigel Farage is not extreme enough for Musk, so instead he supports Lowe, Tommy Robinson, and Advance UK:

Notoriously, Lowe defended Musk after his site started generating deepfake imagery (what you might call ‘revenge pornography’):

Said deepfakes included Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM). And Musk spat his dummy out when governments of the world demanded that he turn off the paedophile taps. We thought they should have arrested him, but apparently if you’re the world’s richest man, you can facilitate the creation of CSAM without getting in trouble.

Another one supporting Lowe’s new party is the human migraine Katie Hopkins:

The less said about Hopkins the better, but she’s definitely someone who’s ‘tainted by the failures of the past‘. We’d say Lowe probably has the sense not to run her as a candidate, but he supported Musk despite all of the above, so who knows?

Carl Benjamin — a.k.a. ‘Sargon of Akkad’ — has also joined Restore.

Benjamin got in trouble in 2019 because he couldn’t stop ‘joking’ about raping Jess Phillips. Here’s a picture of the guy covered in milkshake from the time he ran as a UKIP candidate:

A serious force?

Lowe’s supporters are claiming the party is off to a flying start. Nevertheless, Rupert Lowe has plenty of critics as well.

While this isn’t hard confirmation, previous polling has shown there’s a potential voter base for Lowe — especially in his own constituency:

While it’s tempting to think Restore will split the Reform vote, there is another possibility. The spurned Lowe could use Restore as a weapon to damage Reform’s electability, and he could then use that to force Farage out and take control of both parties. This wouldn’t surprise us, as Lowe has already merged with Advance UK — a party formed by Ben Habib — i.e. another of the politicians Farage kicked out of Reform:

Reform and Restore could also just enter into an electoral alliance. This shouldn’t be difficult, of course, because they already have the exact same name.

Featured image via Conservatives