Reform UK leader Nigel Farage today told UnHerd that his relationship with American podcaster Tucker Carlson had “cooled a little in recent times”.

Carlson, set to release an interview with former Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe tomorrow, reportedly approached Farage first but turned to Lowe after being declined, a source familiar with the matter said. Speaking to UnHerd today, Farage did not explicitly confirm the claim but said: “I’ve known Tucker for a very long time, I used to appear quite regularly on his Fox News show — he even once said I was his favourite foreigner. But relations between us have cooled a little in recent times.”

It comes after widespread criticism of Carlson on both sides of the Atlantic for platforming white supremacist influencer Nick Fuentes in late October. That interview sparked a debate over the rise of “groyperism”, and to what extent Donald Trump’s base of Republican voters may be influenced by Fuentes’s extremist ideas. Groypers are generally understood to be a far-Right group who associate themselves with Fuentes’s white-nationalist rhetoric.

In March this year, Lowe was suspended from Reform and reported to the police for allegedly threatening violence towards then party chairman Zia Yusuf. Prior to this, Lowe had questioned Farage’s “messianic qualities” and said that it was “too early to know whether Nigel will deliver”.

After his suspension, the Great Yarmouth MP became an outspoken critic of the party, calling Reform’s leadership “rotten and deceitful” and saying that “Nigel Farage must never be prime minister.” Lowe has since founded Restore Britain, which is “not a political party”, but “a movement for those who believe that we need to fundamentally change the way Britain is governed”. Find Out Now polling commissioned by Restore Britain from last week suggested that a Lowe-led party would win 10% of the national vote.

Reform UK has been leading opinion polls for months and is expected to gain seats in the devolved assemblies in Scotland and Wales next year, as well as in local elections in England. The party today accused the Government of “cancelling democracy” by delaying four 2026 mayoral elections, all of which Farage says Reform would have won.