Latest news with #GreatRepealAct
Spectator
01-07-2025
- Politics
- Spectator
Can these Farage rivals' start-ups hurt Reform?
You wait ages for a right-wing movement to come along – and then two do so at once. Former MEPs Ben Habib and Rupert Lowe both launched rival outlets yesterday. Habib now leads 'Advance UK', a political party whose first aim is to reach 30,000 members. Meanwhile, Lowe has started 'Restore Britain', a 'bottom-up movement' which welcomes members from all parties. It aims to start legal challenges, fund investigative journalists and champion whistleblowers. Both are ex-Reformers who came off worst in a fight with Nigel Farage The two movements share several key features. The first is a championing of direct democracy, with both Advance and Restore urging members to join and shape their direction. The second is a focus on argument, ideology and principles, rather than the nuts-and-bolts work of door knocking and campaigning in the mould of traditional political parties and pressure groups. Of the two, Lowe's is the more intriguing. He is championing the 'Great Repeal Act' – a popular idea on the British right, to undo much of New Labour's constitutional settlement. Habib's 12-minute launch video consists mainly of him talking to the camera about internal party reform. Unlike Habib, Lowe is an MP and thus able to enjoy the use of written questions in the House, airtime in the chamber and parliamentary privilege when discussing contentious matters. Yet the challenge facing both men is evident on day one. It is extraordinarily difficult to establish a new political party in the UK. For Reform, it took four years and hundreds of thousands of pounds just to get to the point last July where they won five seats. Organisation is key to success in British politics. The fact that both men launched on the same day is not a promising sign. Neither man did any pre-briefing; there was no big press conference to impress the Westminster press pack. As a result, neither launch garnered so much as a mention in today's Daily Mail or Telegraph – two papers which share many of Lowe and Habib's own views. Both men have big followings on X but even in a social media age, they will likely struggle to get cut-through. The striking thing is that both men have decided to pursue separate ventures, rather than pooling resources and working together. Both are ex-Reformers who came off worst in a fight with Nigel Farage. They are each, understandably, bruised by that experience, which continues to shape their respective politics and their causes. Lowe and Habib clearly hope to hurt Reform by claiming back the intellectual and political leadership of the right. But the fact that they, so far, have been unable to work together will be held up as proof by Farage as one reason why they will never supplant him.
Telegraph
14-03-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Musk appears to endorse Rupert Lowe amid Reform civil war
Elon Musk has appeared to endorse Rupert Lowe in the wake of his extraordinary fallout with Nigel Farage that prompted civil war in Reform UK. The tech billionaire, who now has a major role in the White House under Donald Trump, used his social media platform X – formerly Twitter – to signal his support for Mr Lowe by posting two Union flag emojis alongside a montage of the MP's speeches. It came as the now-independent MP for Great Yarmouth and the Reform leader sat about 400 metres apart at Cheltenham Racecourse as they separately attended the Gold Cup meeting on Friday. Reform suspended Mr Lowe last week amid accusations of bullying and the party reporting him to the police over threats he is alleged to have made against its chairman Zia Yusuf. Mr Lowe categorically denies all allegations and claims they are nothing more than a ' witch hunt ' after he broke ranks days before his suspension to criticise Mr Farage's leadership. The war of words between Mr Lowe and Mr Farage escalated significantly in the following days. The Reform leader said on Wednesday there was 'no way back' for his former business spokesman following his claim that the party silenced him over the rape gangs scandal. In his first intervention since the row broke out, Mr Musk replied to a tweet which included a video montage of Mr Lowe that was first posted to TikTok. The compilation had been uploaded to X with the caption: 'Can we please get this man as prime minister?' Mr Musk indicated his agreement by posting two Union flag emojis as a reply. The montage he responded to was first uploaded to TikTok earlier in the week by an account called 'REAL BRIT REAL TALK' and has had more than 79,000 likes on the platform. Accompanied on TikTok with the words 'can he be the one?', it is a supercut of a speech given by Mr Lowe at a Reform event in Essex prior to his suspension. He can be heard saying: 'Watching Trump and the Americans, it has made me even more determined to restore our great country through a Great Repeal Act when Labour falls at the next election.' In the second part of the montage, Mr Lowe continued: 'I don't particularly care if we're liked by the rest of the world. I care if we're respected, because right now Britain is a joke and has been for some time.' He said in his third section of his speech: 'I want the British government to put the British people at the top of the agenda. 'We should make no apologies for that, learn from Trump, let's be unapologetically patriotic, slash tax across the board, enforce the border, deport those with no right to be here, accept biological reality, fight back against wokery, bulldoze nonsensical foreign aid, eradicate DEI, deliver sensible infrastructure, carpet bomb public sector waste, brutally crack down on crime and plenty more.' In a reference to Mr Trump's 'make America great again' slogan, Mr Lowe said in the fourth and final clip: 'Let's make Great Britain great again. Thank you.' It is not the first time the Tesla and SpaceX entrepreneur has signalled his support for Mr Lowe at the apparent expense of Mr Farage. In January, Mr Musk sent shockwaves through Westminster by withdrawing his support from Mr Farage, who he had met at Mr Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort just a matter of weeks before. In an abrupt change of heart, he posted on Jan 5: 'The Reform party needs a new leader. Farage doesn't have what it takes.' He went on to tentatively suggest Mr Lowe could replace him. The row is thought to have further damaged relations between Mr Farage and Mr Lowe, who are understood to have been drifting apart since they became MPs at last year's election. Following Mr Musk's endorsement, the official Reform X account stopped sharing posts by Mr Lowe, whose opinions have been endorsed by Mr Musk on many occasions since. At Cheltenham on Friday, Mr Farage was pictured on a balcony outside a hospitality box alongside Nick Candy, the billionaire property tycoon turned treasurer of the party. The Clacton MP told reporters of his love for the festival when he touched down that morning. 'The atmosphere, the people, I've been coming over 40 years,' he said. 'It's just the most adorable day,' he added. Asked what he thought of gambling, he replied: 'I love it.' Mr Lowe was pictured standing outside the Royal Box – where the Princess Royal was due to be watching the day's action. Tickets to watch Friday's highly coveted Gold Cup race sold out, with 70,000 spectators expected to be in attendance.
