Will Reform UK in-fighting check the party's momentum?

Bitter in-fighting has broken out within Nigel Farage's Reform UK party, culminating in the suspension of one of its five MPs, Rupert Lowe.

Lowe, who represents Great Yarmouth, had the party whip withdrawn following allegations of "serious bullying" in his parliamentary office, and of "threats of physical violence", now reported to the police, against the party chair, Zia Yusuf.

The allegations surfaced shortly after Lowe criticised Farage and the party leadership in a Daily Mail interview, describing Reform under Farage as a "protest party led by the messiah". Lowe has now threatened to "take legal action" for his "political assassination".

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

'Chopped off at the knees'

I'm "acutely aware", wrote Nigel Farage in The Telegraph, that "the public does not like political parties that engage in constant infighting". That's why Reform has been devoting time to "building a unified national party". But now, thanks to Lowe "unloading a barrage of criticisms against our operations and its main actors, that sense of unity has been dented".

The party has appointed a top barrister to "conduct an independent inquiry" because "to ignore such allegations" would be "inconceivable".

Farage critics will view all this as "Ukip folklore" unfolding again: a "politician in a Farage party becomes so popular as to threaten his supremacy and then gets chopped off at the knees", said Patrick O'Flynn in The Spectator.

But "this is more than just a clash of personalities", said the BBC's Chris Mason. "There are differences of policy instinct between the two men." While Lowe has "advocated mass deportations", for example, Farage "doesn't think that is practical or popular". And Lowe has "praised the jailed far-right activist Stephen Yaxley Lennon", otherwise known as Tommy Robinson, while Farage "refuses to have anything to do with him".

'Success limited by ego'

For some politicians, the Reform fallout was inevitable. In the run-up to last July's election, Tory peer and columnist Daniel Finkelstein wrote on X: "Nigel Farage should hope that he is the only Reform MP elected. Because if there are two or more of them, the Reform parliamentary party will split at some point".

Finkelstein's prediction was "based on a record of success limited by ego," said John Rentoul in The Independent. "Farage has often shone brightly but briefly, and broken everything he touches." His dreams of "displacing the Tories as the largest opposition party at the next election depend on a level of organisation of which Farage and his loyalists have never been capable". And while Kemi Badenoch "must be a little more cheerful today", the real beneficiary of the Reform split will be Keir Starmer.

This spat has shown that, for "all his undoubted skills" Farage's limitations "are just as important". He "will never be as effective a politician as he could be because he is not a team player". This current row means "the chances of a two-term Labour government have increased – slightly but perceptibly".