March 12, 2025 - 7:00am
Just a few days ago, the talk on the Right was of the inevitable — indeed, imminent — collapse of the Conservatives. The lights were going out at Matthew Parker Street and Nigel Farage was moving in. But far from ousting the Tories from their headquarters, Farage is adopting a different Conservative tactic: party infighting.
The Reform UK leader’s thinly-disguised hatchet job to oust Rupert Lowe is a classic case of Tall Poppy Syndrome. As a result of the botched effort, there are now reports that Lowe may team up with a former deputy leader of Reform, who quit the party last year, to form a breakaway Right-wing faction. The proposal came from former Brexit Party MEP Ben Habib, a vocal Farage critic, who revealed he is “constantly in touch” with Lowe.
Dissatisfaction with Farage is not limited to an inner ring, either. Early this year, 12 councillors left the party en masse, describing his leadership as “autocratic”. More recently, 2,000 members left the party in protest at Lowe’s ousting, too.
While the path for any nascent Right-wing party may be difficult, Reform itself has proved it is not impossible; 2024 saw a new record for aggregate volatility among voters, which indicated the biggest change in party vote share for nearly a century. Once voters have already changed their allegiance, it becomes easier to change again. So while Farage may be on the up now, high levels of voter volatility mean this may not be the case forever.
All this raises questions about how strong a party can be when it is built around one man. That is especially the case when, despite being the most popular politician in the country, Farage is also among the most unpopular too — a phenomenon replicated even within his own party. According to a YouGov survey conducted on Sunday and Monday, 21% of Reform UK voters believe the party would perform “a lot better” without Farage, while an additional 12% think it would do “a little better”.
Farage has become a living avatar for dissatisfaction with the political consensus, but a deeply imperfect one for enacting any change to it. He is a media performer rather than a policy wonk and, although he is undoubtedly an excellent one, Reform’s current offering is remarkably thin. On immigration, what should be the party’s bread and butter, Farage has softened and clearly been outflanked by other Right-wing figures — not just by Lowe, but also Conservatives such as Robert Jenrick. Without Lowe, who alone accounted for 46% of Reform’s total parliamentary activity, Farage risks losing a valuable messenger.
If Lowe were to depart, then Reform would inevitably turn into a one-man party (if it isn’t already). In any case, the party may well die as soon as Farage decides to leave for America again. That, more than anything, could open up a space for individual talents to emerge — if they are prepared to try and outlast him.
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SubscribePoppies are weeds of cultivation. Such things grow on ground that has been disturbed.
Having disturbed the ground of the uniparty, a hard pan that prevented moisture from reaching and germinating other seeds, Mr F has done his (excellent) work.
It’s the same with his Brexit efforts. Those who wanted to try to mobilise the voting public in the Referendum campaign by having a detailed plan and educating the public in the minutiae of the EU would have doomed the enterprise.
It’s unfortunate that the leave result was highjacked by a Tory Party faction (helped by Mr F himself). The risk for Reform UK is that the Tories will do the same again.
It’s time to say it like it is, Nigel Farage doesn’t have what it takes to lead the UK through challenging times ahead. Sadly Elon Musk was right. Robert Lowe is one of the few truly decent people I’ve ever seen in politics and would make a vastly superior leader to Farage who repeatedly, has used low down cowardly tactics to oust opposition to his rule throughout his political career.
The great news is that this didn’t happen near an election, there is still time for a viable right wing option lead by Lowe to try and give the voters an option for real change.
Lowe is only in politics to make a change. He isn’t in it for ego, or money, but to try and rescue his country. He’ll probably need Elon’s money, but it can be done. Farage needs to join Boris on the after dinner circuit and leave this fight to someone who has the stones for it.
I think you’re right. There is room for characters like Farage and Johnson but not running political parties.
It’s not just that Farage always falls out with everyone who might be a threat to him. It’s the malignant attempted character assassination, akin to the worst excesses to cancel culture. Farage doesn’t want to win, and he doesn’t want to change anything. He wants supine acolytes, parliamentary allowances, and a platform to maintain his public profile. The spectacle of him cheerfully conceding defeat minutes after voting closed in the Brexit referendum was hugely revealing. A moral victory, and attention without responsibility, is always the best result for Nigel.
Yes, I think that’s right. The long term pattern of poor behaviour does point to an insurmountable ego: Sked, Carswell, Bloom, Bennett, Bolton, Batten, Cummings, O’Flynn and now Lowe. And whilst he’s good at articulating issues he’s weak to non-existent on devising solutions or bringing people with him, which are both qualities necessary for leadership. Pity really, but the right is going to have to look elsewhere for a new standard bearer.
Thats the end of Reform. The biggest winner from this debacle is the rather useless Badenoch
I’m not sure she will last the course. The conservatives are little better on the infighting front; a slightly bigger barrel with more rats in it. I do wonder if Musk might still give someone a huge bung to develop an a new party. We’ll see I suppose.
I hope not. Last thing I’d like to see is tha ketamine addled fruitcake having sway over British politics
Joyous. Long may it continue.
Been quite a couple of weeks for Starmer. He seems surrounded by rather pathetic opposition while he’s suddenly found his feet internationally. Just maybe being an adult does pay off?
Starmer’s job is to look after Britain, not Ukraine. He’s not doing it very well.
Found his feet internationally,? You’re ‘aving a larf!
His sycophantic “success” with Trump lasted 24 hours before everything he thought he knew about Trump’s Ukraine policy was blown out of the water. The King is left deeply embarrassed after being forced to offer Trump a state visit. Chagos deal still not signed – I wonder why. Today we find that the UK is not exempt from Trumpian tariffs after all.
Now that his mate Tulip has had her assets seized, we’ll be hearing a lot more about Starmer’s links to the corrupt Awami League.
In recent times all the most popular politicians have been excoriated as ‘divisive’. Who is responsible for the excoriation? Perhaps the Establishment and their minions prefer people who support the status quo?
Alternative right of centre parties already exist, such as the SDP, unfortunately they don’t have the media profile to break through. The only party that does is Reform, and that is due to Mr Farrage. There is no reason to think that a new party would be any different.
People who want to see change need to stick with Reform until the election, and a much larger number of right of centre MPs are returned, that’s the time to start working for change within reform.
Otherwise the risk of killing the only party with a chance of challenging the mainstream is too great.
I fear you may be right but 1) Rupert Lowe seems to be a great person with good views and 2) the SDP describe themselves as “patriotic, economically left-leaning and culturally traditional party” so don’t that makes them right of centre.
Being patriotic and culturally traditional makes the SDP right of most UK parties.
Rupert Lowe may be Christ reincarnated but it doesn’t change the unfortunate fact that he isn’t going to get a party off the ground which has any chance of being elected at the next election. Reform is the only game in town. If you don’t want Labour or Conservative.
How are Reform ever to win an election if every candidate is thrown under the bus the minute they start to look like a threat to Nigel’s leadership?
I would not necessarily disagree but Rupert is a bit of a renegade, albeit an intelligent one. He’s just stepped over the line that’s all. How can Reform get elected if he keeps giving the other parties fodder to beat them up (mass deportation etc)
All of this depends on whether Robert Jenrick gets the Tory leadership before the next British general election. If he were to do so and offer a pact with Reform then it’s possible that Farage, Tice and Anderson would cross over to the Conservatives. However, Jenrick is currently to the right of them though he’s not gone as far as the mass deportations that R Lowe proposes for criminals who are illegal migrants.
I think a Jenrick/Lowe alliance would be interesting. I can’t see Farage and Co being wanted in the new tent.
I thought and hope that Lowe would look for mass remigration of all illegal visitors to the UK (give them 6 months to sell up and leave and if they don’t register for that or do it then a large chunk of their assets are taken to pay for the cost of their deportation and other costs.). Criminals should be deported after their sentence and lose all assets to pay for sentencing costs etc and if cannot be deported then moved to a permanent accommodation on a cheap island. And any other visitor who makes themselves unwelcome by their legal actions (eg protesting, only citizens and legal residents have right to protest) told to leave.
Why would any sane person object to deporting a criminal who was here illegally? A huge chunk of people commenting seem to have lost all common sense,
‘Rupert Lowe accounted total parliamentary activity’ says the picture caption. Huh??
I can work it out from the article, but it’s really sloppy stuff.
The eponymous party of Sarah Wagenknecht promised much but seriously underperformed in the recent German election. A lesson there for Reform, perhaps.
Who cares. There’s nowhere for them to go anyway except ditches we’ve seen before. Zero capacity for original thinking.