"The Tories Can Have Him": Inside Reform's Rupert Lowe Crisis

For most of Friday, 7 March, staff in Reform HQ were in a jolly mood. 

But the air in the party's Millbank Tower office quickly darkened as rumours started to swirl about the immediate future of one of the party's five MPs, Rupert Lowe.

Two days earlier, the outspoken MP for Great Yarmouth raised eyebrows when he appeared to publicly question Farage’s leadership, asking whether he would “deliver the goods” and describing the surging right-wing outfit as a “protest party led by the Messiah”. 

Although it was no huge secret that tensions between Lowe and the other Reform MPs had been there for months, nobody predicted the bombshell statement that dropped at 5pm that Friday afternoon, just as Westminster was preparing to log off for the weekend.

Reform announced it was investigating two serious allegations of bullying in Lowe’s office, and that they had reported twenty per cent of the parliamentary party to the police over repeated threats he is alleged to have made against the party’s chairman, Zia Yusuf. 

Lowe denies the allegations and has accused the party of orchestrating an “elaborate witch hunt” for daring to speak out against Farage and criticise the party’s structures.

It wasn’t until after the statement was released to journalists that Ed Sumner, Reform’s head of press, quickly summoned around 15 junior staff for a meeting to break the news. A party spokesman later confirmed to journalists that Lowe had the whip suspended pending the investigation – a detail that had been mistakenly left out of the original statement. An insider said senior staff were left “ashen faced” by this misstep.

Lowe on the other hand wasn’t informed about his newly-independent status until he saw it on X, the website formerly known as Twitter. Lee Anderson, the party’s chief whip in charge of discipline, rang him 30 minutes later to tell him directly. It was said to be a short call.  

What followed was all-out civil war, playing out online for all to see.

Since then the relationship has soured further, with Farage insisting there is “no way back” into the party for Lowe – even if the investigation finds him innocent. 

Senior Reform figures have tried to remain upbeat amid the chaos. One joked that although the party no longer had enough players to field a five-aside football team, hopefully after a couple of by-elections they will have a squad big enough to have a substitute. 

Reform figures who are glad to see Lowe gone believe the MP's language had become too extreme for a party aiming to broaden its electoral appeal. 

Lowe in recent weeks has called for mass deportations of a million-plus illegal migrants (which Farage has said is a “political impossibility”) and described “young foreign males from alien cultures”.

“[Farage] is probably so terrified of Reform becoming UKIP 2.0”, said one ally of the Reform leader. “He's been burned with that so many times. For the first time he's got an opportunity to shape things in the way he wants.

“It’s the fit in or f**k off approach to life, that's how he's going to play it."

On Lowe's language, another senior Reform source said: “It was getting far too testy." 

The row — which a week on is showing few signs of being put to bed — is seen as Reform's biggest crisis since winning five House of Commons seats at the July general election.

It had largely been all smiles for the party since the summer, topping opinion polls and eyeing major gains at the May local and mayoral elections. Claims that they could win power next time around started to be taken a bit more seriously  — not least from Labour MPs with precarious majorities who have urged the government to take the fight to Farage.

Some insiders believe the episode can't be brushed off as insignificant. 

“The idea that Nigel is going to lead a government when they can't even control five MPs is a bit of a joke,” said one more pessimistic party source.

One Reform branch chair revealed to PoliticsHome they have been warned by party HQ to stay neutral and not comment on the investigation while it is still ongoing.

However, the same figure insisted that it had yet to impact the party's standing locally.

“Everyone's still on board”, they said.

“The only negative [comments] I've seen about it is really online on social media... No one has said, 'oh, we’re changing our minds because of this’."

James Johnson, co-founder of JL Partners Polls, cast severe doubt over the Lowe row having a significant impact on Reform's national ambitions, describing it as "inside baseball".

"This is not an issue that is cutting through," he told PoliticsHome.

"This is not an issue that I see having any immediate impact. If debate rolls on and on and on, and there's lots of infighting, then it could start to cut through and create a sense that Reform is a divided party...

"It would need six months plus of real infighting."

While the story has gripped Westminster, a JL Partners poll published this week found that 86 per cent of the public – and 71 per cent of Reform UK voters – do not know who Lowe is.

“It’s all very much the Nigel show”, said one party insider. 

Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, said it is important to differentiate between Reform's "pretty online" members, many of whom have expressed outrage on websites like X over the treatment of Lowe, and "the wider supporters and voters, most of whom don't spend that much time looking at political content on social media".

"The latter group is far bigger and far more important to Reform's success,” he said.

A victory at the upcoming Runcorn and Helbsy by-election, triggered by the resignation of Labour's Mike Amesbury, would help Reform move on from the Lowe episode.

PoliticsHome understands that the party has already picked its candidate and is waiting for the opportune moment to reveal their identity. A constituency poll carried out by Lord Ashcroft this week put Reform out in front on 40 per cent, with Labour behind on 35.

But some in the party fear the Lowe row could get worse, not subside. 

“There's not a cat's chance in hell we will win Runcorn,” said a grassroots source.

One Reform candidate said there’s been some disappointment from voters on the doorstep, with people complaining about  “male politicians” and their “political egos”. 

There has also been confusion over how the party membership has been impacted by the row, with one insider claiming Reform has lost more than 2,000 members as a result, despite the party's membership ticker indicating a smaller number, less than 1,000, have quit.

PoliticsHome understands that when members contacted Reform to cancel their membership, the party was not terminating their contract immediately, instead keeping them on its records until their membership expired at the end of the year. 

The party did not dispute this.

Donors who have flocked to Reform in their droves in the last year or so have also been keeping a close eye on the unfolding row, some in dismay. 

“I want to bang their heads together and get things sorted,” lamented Charlie Mullins, Reform donor and former owner of Pimlico Plumbers.

He told PoliticsHome that the party had “gone woke” by reporting Lowe to the police.

“There's more important things to get on with than worrying about two verbal threats to a grown man,” he said.

Mullins insisted that he would “always stick with Nigel”, but went on to heap praise on Lowe, describing the exiled MP "prime ministerial material, the same as Nigel Farage".

“Rupert Lowe is a great statesman. He's a great person to have on your side, in your team."

Another Farage ally was similarly complimentary. “Out of the five MPs, Nigel and Rupert are absolutely streets ahead of anybody else – the others are a bit bland. That's why it's a sadness because people were looking at Rupert and Nigel as a very good double act," they said.

At least one Reform donor in the north England is not happy with the chairman Yusuf, according to one party source.

Questions have turned to where Lowe might go next.

It’s been suggested he might form a breakaway party with Ben Habib, Reform’s former deputy co-leader who fell out with Farage last year, funded by X owner Elon Musk. There has also been talk of Lowe defecting to the Tories. So far, he has ruled out neither.

Lowe's allies claim he has been approached by multiple senior Conservative MPs about defecting as recently as this week.

Several MPs in the shadow cabinet have expressed public support for Lowe, including shadow home secretary Chris Philp who said Lowe had been treated “appallingly”.

It’s understood that before Lowe was under investigation and still a Reform MP, attempts were already underway to persuade him to defect. PoliticsHome understands that the idea of approaching Lowe was discussed in a Tory WhatsApp group a couple of months ago. 

“Kemi, Kemi snatch him up! Kemi snatch him up!” urged one Conservative MP.

"Rupert Lowe is one of the most impressive new MPs," they told PoliticsHome. "What better way to demonstrate we are really under new management than welcoming him?"

Another Conservative MP was less enthusiastic: “Why would we want a lunatic in our party?”

Indeed, Tory insiders told PoliticsHome that the Reform infighting has been a gift for Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch after a rocky start to her leadership. 

“The Tories can have him”, shrugged one senior Reform figure, who added that if their party struggled to control the Great Yarmouth MP, then the Tories would have no chance.

One thing on which everyone agrees is that Reform’s honeymoon period is over. What's less clear is whether the Lowe saga will inflict any serious damage on the party in the long run. 

PoliticsHome Newsletters

PoliticsHome provides the most comprehensive coverage of UK politics anywhere on the web, offering high quality original reporting and analysis: Subscribe