At 68, Rupert Lowe admits he probably shouldn’t be standing on a ladder, juggling a megaphone in the carpark of a greyhound racing track on a Saturday morning.
But a 350-strong-crowd have driven from all over the UK to hear from this unlikely radical about his new movement Restore Britain.
Restore is seen as a genuine threat to the electoral success of Nigel Farage and Reform and yet has so far avoided close scrutiny of their policy platform and membership.
The i Paper went to meet Lowe at his campaign event in Great Yarmouth to examine more closely the potential implications of the growth of the extreme right-wing party on the UK political landscape, and attempt to put Lowe on the spot over his more controversial public statements.
“This is the most exciting day of my life,” he told the crowd in the Norfolk coastal town, above the noise of supportive car toots from the main road and underneath a drone camera recording the event for social media.
It is Lowe’s online presence as a rallying point for the online radical right that has seen him swell his support from a standing start just over a year ago to a membership that Restore claims is enough to rival mainstream parties. Now he’s determined to translate support into council seats.
In a double-breasted blue blazer, blue chinos and with a pair of reading glasses around his neck, Lowe gives every appearance of the off-duty Gloucestershire farmer he is. But his far-right policy offering is far from mainstream. In this deprived corner of eastern England, his audience in shorts and baseball caps are a willing audience.
Restore wants the mass deportation of “millions” of illegal migrants, to abolish the asylum system and remove benefits from every foreign national. He also wants a referendum on reintroducing the death penalty, to outlaw halal and kosher slaughter, ban the burqa and niqab, slash income tax, abolish inheritance tax and defund the BBC.
Research published in October 2024 and compiled by 18 institutions including the University of Oxford’s COMPAS (Centre on Migration, Policy and Society), estimated that the number of irregular migrants in the UK was less than one million – standing between 594,000 and 745,000.
A multimillionaire businessman and former chairman of Southampton Football Club, Lowe has been knocking about on the Eurosceptic fringe of British politics for decades. As a candidate for the Referendum Party in 1997, later as a Brexit Party MEP, before becoming a Reform UK MP for Great Yarmouth.
After a spectacular falling out with Reform’s leader Nigel Farage last year and a subsequent briefing war, Lowe could have melted away. Instead, he kicked off his own political movement, aided by an endorsement from X billionaire Elon Musk after Farage declined the support of far-right agitator Tommy Robinson.
Rather than fading into obscurity like other casualties of Farage’s purges, Lowe boasts 753,000 followers on X, 83,000 on TikTok and 1,2 million on Facebook. Farage has 2.2 million, 1.4 million, and 2.1 million respectively.
Where once Lowe’s views would be consigned to a small and ignorable corner of the internet, his growing influence is a challenge to mainstream politics. In a fracturing political landscape where small percentages can make big differences in electoral outcomes, the question is whether Lowe can take any significant vote share away from Reform. His loose coalition stretches from disaffected mainstream voters, via former Reform members, to open fascists.
Predicting Restore’s electoral path is complicated by Lowe’s ambition to operate it as an umbrella for smaller, hyper-local parties. Great Yarmouth First is its inaugural offering, piggybacking off Lowe’s reputation as the local MP.
A seaside town reliant on turbulent seasonal tourism, it has the third highest rate of people needing debt support in England and Wales, according to data released this month.
“There are 9 seats in Great Yarmouth. We’re standing in a borough council by-election, so we want to try and win all of those,” Lowe said in an interview with The i Paper after the rally. “We’re not standing anywhere else in the country because we only launched the party in mid-February and an army that is on the march can overextend itself, so we’ve moved very quickly and with 133,000 members now, it’s grown very fast.”
Lowe’s former Reform colleagues in Parliament are dismissive when his name is mentioned. “Who?” said one Reform MP, pretending not to know him. “Look, polls go up and down. Is it a big deal if they win in Great Yarmouth? No one mentions them in Grimsby.”
Sandra Sutton, 79, attending Saturday’s rally from nearby Gorleston, reckons Lowe’s split from Reform has worked in his favour. “I’m glad, in a way, that he got kicked out because he was in Farage’s shadow,” the retired supermarket worker said.
The latest YouGov polling puts Restore at about 3 per cent, to Reform’s 26 percent. Farage has campaigned in 36 council areas during this local election season to Lowe’s one.
But a Tory MP told The i Paper that they’d been seeing evidence of Lowe’s appeal when campaigning during the local elections in another part of the east of England. “In some places, maybe they could reach 8 per cent if they stood here,” the MP said. Another Tory source based in the East Midlands put the figure even higher in their area. “Maybe 10 per cent, even, in some places, there’s a lot of dissatisfaction,” they estimated.
Anecdotally, Restore is picking up support among former Reform supporters, the purists who think Farage has allowed in too many former Conservatives.
“Reform is literally just a Tory Party 2.0,” said Chloe Peters, a twenty-something occupational health therapist from Worcester, who turned up to support Lowe on Saturday. “And Farage has just done so many U-turns. I just don’t want to see another government full of U-turns basically. We want to actually have someone that’s going to that’s going to deliver on what they say that they will do.”
What may be more troubling for mainstream voters considering joining Lowe are the endorsements he’s picking up. They include Simon Birkett, the leader of The Woodlander Initiative, which buys up land to build enclaves for white people but denies being a white supremacist group. Birkett was formerly a member of the British National Party and has been linked to the far-right group Patriotic Alternative. In a social media video, he said he was “heartened” by Restore although he had some reservations.
Qualified approval has also come from the leader of Remigration Now, Steve Laws. He’s called for the removal of all “non-whites” from the UK, said he is a “proud” racist and described Adolf Hitler as “a misunderstood politician”. Laws said Restore would “get the early stages of remigration achieved” although their end goals differ.
Previous attempts to link their endorsement to Lowe’s Restore have led to accusations of a “smear” campaign.
More than 65,000 people have crossed the Channel in small boats since Keir Starmer became Prime Minister on July 5, 2024, the latest available data shows.
Growing anger around the Government’s failure to tackle illegal immigration has led to protests being held around the country, sparked by the case in Epping, where an asylum seeker housed in a hotel in the Essex town was jailed after sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl. Last month, demonstrators marched in Epsom, Surrey, following an alleged gang rape, which was later determined by police to have not taken place.
By far Lowe’s most successful achievement to date has been crowd-funding an inquiry into grooming gangs. Survivors have given harrowing testimony to the “Rape Gang Inquiry,” which has also featured mainstream MPs on its panels. The hearings are examining how public institutions, police, and local authorities have failed systematically.
“I have the draft report on my desk, and we are basically working through the redactions to ensure that we produce it in a way which gives us the time to pursue whoever we want to pursue through private prosecutions to our timescale. Every time we say we’re going to pursue private prosecutions, more money comes in, so that’s what the British people want,” Lowe said.
Granted just four and a half minutes with Lowe, there is not time to question his policy platform in detail.
In Great Yarmouth town centre, it’s hard to find a dissenting voice against Lowe but one exception is Lisa-Marie Hutt who doesn’t know who to vote for. “Extra drastic changes do need to happen, but if there is any kind of link to that kind of extremism, I don’t think it has a place,” the teaching assistant said.
Lee Argent, 67, a retired plant driver has driven to Great Yarmouth from Wickford, Essex in a van that is plastered with his political views. “STOP CHILD GROOMING NOW. CASTRATE THEM. NOT IMPRISONMENT,” shouts one slogan in capitals running the length of the vehicle. “STOP THE ILLEGAL INVASION BEFORE CIVIL UNREST” is another.
A former Labour voter, Argent is like many around the country who are considering local tactical voting on Thursday. In his case, Reform. “I’d vote for Restore every time if we had a candidate in Essex. I think Reform is going to cater for business more. Rupert Lowe speaks for the Englishman. I’m more patriotic,” Argent said.
According to Joe Twyman of Deltapoll, 22 per cent of British adults had heard of Restore Britain, with 36 per cent of Reform supporters the most likely to clocked them. In a series of surveys charting party recognition, Twyman found greater awareness from older respondents of political parties but Restore has its highest recognition among 18-to-24-year-olds.
Social media is where James first noticed Lowe. He’s one of several Restore-curious voters at the rally who don’t want their friends or employers to know about their political views.
James, who wouldn’t give his surname and will only give his age as mid-thirties, works in London in finance. “It’s not a conflict, but people might get the wrong idea,” he said when asked why he won’t go public with his views, which include banning burqas in public.
“I feel like there’s a big group of people, probably never been involved in politics, and he’s kind of tapping into the disillusion and the fuss,” James said.
Similarly shy is a retired primary head teacher at the rally. She declined to give her name because she hasn’t told her left-leaning family she supports Restore.
“I haven’t told them I’m here today. I don’t like to see myself as either left or right. I just go for common sense,” she said. As a former Liberal Democrat voter, she’s a rare find at a Restore rally, but explains her politics stem from Brexit. A Leave voter, she abandoned the Lib Dems when they “tried to overturn” the result of the 2016 referendum.
On Saturday Lowe’s supporters came from as far afield as Sheffield, Leeds, Milton Keynes, London and even Aberdeen. They queued for navy Restore t-shirts and Lowe’s autograph, as he mingled in the bright sunshine, urging supporters to wear sunscreen.
If Lowe’s starting small, he’s aiming high. “We’re going to field candidates everywhere in 2029,” he asserted about the general election. Already 10 councillors have defected to Restore. They include Warwickshire councillor Scott Cameron who defected from Reform in February.
“The only people I’ve had anything negative off are die-hard Reformers, and they’re going: ‘You’re racist, you’re going to split the vote, you’re going to do this, you’re going to do that.’ And I go: ‘Hang on a minute. You are doing exactly what the left did to you 12 months ago, two years ago, which is just calling us racists and far-right and Nazis and all this, that and the other. So Reform voters are doing that to Restore Britain. It’s just a little bit hypocritical,” Cameron said by phone.
Lowe’s incendiary rhetoric and ideas could do Farage a favour, making Reform appear more moderate, centrist even. But as his popularity goes he could also cost Farage some support.
Locally, Lowe is very popular. He’s given his MP’s salary to charities, a move that has gone down badly in Westminster where his political opponents argue it gives him unfair influence over voters.
More importantly, perhaps, his constituents say he has given them a voice.
Kye Green, 20, a qualified mechanic, is currently looking for work. He voted for Lowe as a Reform candidate in 2024 and has followed him to Restore.
“I think out of all parties, Reform is probably the strongest for now, but I don’t think it’s the final answer,” he said. Perhaps more importantly for Green who was originally from London, Lowe has given him the cover to say what he really believes without compromise.
“Yarmouth is a completely different environment. I can walk around freely…Just a freedom of speech, say what you think. Believe in what you believe in; no one can judge you for it. And it’s Rupert that gives me that confidence,” Green said.
Lowe will probably do well at local elections on Thursday. Whether he can then break out of his Great Yarmouth bubble is a bigger question.