Restore Britain, set up by Rupert Lowe, is threatening to eat into Reform’s vote by promising to ‘reverse mass immigration’, which includes cruel policies like housing asylum seekers in tents
Nigel Farage is facing a potential crisis as Reform battle an even more right-wing party – fuelled by support from Elon Musk.
Restore Britain, set up by multi-millionaire Rupert Lowe, is threatening to eat into Reform’s vote with an alarming promise to “reverse mass immigration”, which includes cruel policies like housing asylum seekers in tents.
Mr Lowe was elected as Reform MP for Great Yarmouth, in Norfolk, in 2024, but has gone to war with his old party after being suspended in March 2025 following allegations of threatening behaviour and bullying.
His new outfit is far more extreme than Reform, with promises to deport millions of people. Policies include abolishing asylum system altogether, abolishing inheritance tax, scrapping foreign aid, and using the money spent on diversity and inclusivity programmes to fund the armed forces instead.
It would also “strengthen the teaching of our Christian heritage”, ban the burqa, hold a binding referendum on restoring the death penalty.
Restore is a small operation with almost no grassroots base but it may prove a headache for Mr Farage in the next month’s Makerfield by-election. The main opponent for Reform is Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, who hopes to seal a return to Westminster, where he can mount a challenge for the Labour leadership.
Reform, already battling to deal with the outcry over the social media posts of their candidate, now has a threat on its right too. The first poll in Makerfield put Labour with a lead of just 3% over Mr Farage’s party, with Restore Britain on 7%.
Spooked by the results, Mr Farage leapt to say the contest was a “two horse race” – effectively warning his base not to back Restore. And he has reason to be worried.
Polling expert Sir John Curtice told The Mirror: “Those figures are consistent with the possibility more broadly that Restore Britain may be one of the reasons as to why support for Reform is a wee bit lower in the spring than it was in the winter.
“Given that if the poll is at all right, it’s potentially very close, and that the constituency is evenly divided between the so-called progressives and the so-called right, then if they were to get a significant share of the vote, it could make a difference.”
He said the poll was small and could be a “freak” result. And he argued that media reporting on the results could be fuelling Restore’s position further.
The polling guru also explained that without Mr Burnham, Reform would expect to win the seat easily. He said: “If Mr Burnham were not standing, Reform should be walking it. It’s only because Burnham is standing, and before this opinion poll, his known approval rating among most 2024 Labour voters in general, and his electoral record as Manchester mayor, that we can even contemplate the possibility that Labour could win this by-election.”
X owner Elon Musk is an integral part of Restore’s significant online reach, regularly posting on his social media platform that only they can “save Britain”. This, combined with Mr Lowe’s 1.3 million followers on Facebook, gives Restore online influence beyond most parties.
Luke Tryl, the UK Director of More in Common, said Restore’s presence had begun to grow in focus groups, in part due to the huge social media following enjoyed by the former Southampton FC chairman.
He explained: “There is no doubt that in the run up to the local elections, I was struck that more people were mentioning Restore in focus groups. It tended to be focus groups of people on the right, and even then it was only one or two people, but for a very new start up party, having that many people mention Rupert Lowe, or say that they sort of preferred him to Farage, again, not the majority, but there was definitely a sort of cohort there.
“Particularly amongst some 2024, Reform voters, they clearly were attracted to Restore as the kind of full fat version of what they would like Reform to be.”
Mr Tryl explained the rise of Restore created an identity crisis for Reform, and that if the Makerfield polling was replicated nationally, the party would lose scores of seats. He said: “We’re in an era of very fragmented politics, which means parties winning on relatively low vote shares. Losing 3 to 4% on one of your flanks is bad at the best of times, but it is particularly acute at the moment.
“We did some modelling in our latest, April MRP, we had Reform on 324 seats, so just shy of a majority. If Restore were to get just north of 3% nationally, assuming they take the bulk of their votes from reform, that would cost them 70 seats. The chances of a Reform government become much more difficult. In somewhere like Makerfield, that poll showed it could well be the difference between an Andy Burnham win and a Reform win.
“There is a danger that Reform in chasing after the kind of 3% who have views which a lot of the country would consider very prejudiced and outside of the mainstream bounds of acceptability, that they alienate those kind of wavering Reform voters on the other side.”
MPs who have canvassed in the constituency have expressed surprise over the Restore presence. Other activists said the party had come up on the doorstep during the local elections, when people frequently said they would vote Restore, not realising the party did not even have a candidate in their area.
Reform sources were dismissive of Restore, but admitted they were bringing huge numbers to canvass in the area. They gave the example of encountering just two people who mentioned Mr Lowe’s party in ten hours, one of which they claimed was to criticise them for splitting the vote.
However, they also said Restore were bringing “hordes” of people to campaign at the weekend, with often four people at one door, but had far fewer numbers in the week.
In a seat where any win is expected to be marginal, Mr Lowe’s bitter exit from Reform could yet decide the seat.