Rupert Lowe has offered an olive branch to Nigel Farage and claimed the pair could unite the “patriotic right” of British politics in an electoral pact that could threaten Andy Burnham.
“Politics being politics,” said Politico, Lowe, a former Reform MP until being suspended by the party in March 2025, spelt out “five conditions for cooperation”. They included “a referendum on the death penalty and the exclusion of former Tory ministers from any future cabinet”.
Farage responded by saying he wanted the support of people from other parties to defeat the left. He didn’t name Lowe and Restore but said Reform’s potential allies should share his commitment to restoring Britain’s borders. But he stood by his former Tory front-benchers, saying: “I will never turn my back on my team.”
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The Greater Manchester mayoral election, won comfortably by Labour’s Bev Craig, has shown the danger Restore could pose to Reform at a future general election. Reform took 21% of first-preference votes, while Restore had 8.7% (Craig won 47.1%). Lowe “appears to have come to a realisation: that Restore is just big enough to prevent Reform victories, but far too small to win itself”, said George Spencer on UnHerd.
The conditions laid out by Lowe show that he is not serious about this offer, said veteran Farage ally Gawain Towler on Substack. It “is a demand engineered to be refused” and the timing of Lowe’s “gesture” comes while Farage is “under scrutiny he could do without”. In speaking out while Farage is under investigation for his financial conduct, Lowe “has chosen the moment of maximum embarrassment to apply pressure and called it generosity”.
But one figure with connections in Reform circles told Politico it was a “tempting offer” for Farage that would stop him “bleeding any more support … but the animosity between the pair is a big barrier”, said Politico.
Surely Farage is a “savvy enough politician to spot that this is not so much a gift as a trap, from a man whom he personally detests”, said James Ball in The i Paper. “Even if he wanted to work with Lowe and went along with his list of demands, this would create new political problems for him”. Among Reform’s voters are “people who aren’t fully signed up to the idea of mass deportations and full-blown Islamophobia”. Rather they are “simply fed up of the status quo and the mainstream parties”.
But “it now appears neither can make the progress needed to nullify the left without the other”, said Giles Sheldrick in the Daily Express. “Many of those closest to the man who almost single-handedly delivered Brexit have said he is driven by ego and ambition.” While Farage denies this is the case, Lowe’s “offer in a bombshell social media post may well provide the definitive answer”.
What next?
It remains to be seen “whether the Burnham bounce in the polls and the dip in Farage’s fortunes mark a decisive shift in momentum in British politics or merely a blip”, said Politico. “What is clear is that the challenges facing Reform are substantial, and growing.”
The ball is clearly now in Farage’s court but the imminent by-election in Clacton and the Labour government’s resurgence mean he “is facing something of a perfect storm,” Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, told Politico. “But while he’s on the ropes he’s by no means on the floor, let alone out for the count.”
