Great Yarmouth MP Rupert Lowe is, on paper, everything party leader Nigel Farage could hope for in a Reform parliamentarian. The post How Reform’s own Rupert Lowe became a threat to Nigel Farage appeared first on Politics.co.uk.
Great Yarmouth MP Rupert Lowe is, on paper, everything Reform leader Nigel Farage could hope for in a parliamentarian. He is a successful businessman (reportedly worth £30 million) with a long history of right-of-Conservative activism. He stood as the Referendum Party candidate for the Cotswolds constituency in the 1997 general election, finishing fourth on 6.6 per cent of the vote. In the 2019 European parliament election, Lowe won a seat for Farage’s Brexit Party.
For his services to anti-Tory politics, Lowe was made Reform’s business and agriculture spokesperson in March 2023 — in which capacity he spoke at party press conferences and toured broadcast studios. Then in 2024, he was selected as the Reform candidate for the Kingswood by-election — where he won 10.4 per cent of the vote, the party’s best-ever result in such contests (so far).
In the general election of the same year, Lowe stood in and won the seat of Great Yarmouth with 35.3 per cent of the vote. He successfully squeezed through the middle of the Labour and Conservative parties, who recorded 31.8 per cent and 24.6 per cent respectively. (That is despite Starmtrooper candidate Keir Cozen’s consummate social media operation).
As such, the former Southampton FC chairman was no mere “paper candidate” like James McMurdock, who Farage accidentally — and potentially regrettably— elected as the Reform MP for South Basildon and East Thurrock. Rather, the new Reform representative for Great Yarmouth was the exact model foot-soldier Farage wanted marching to parliament alongside him. When Farage spoke of a Reform “bridgehead” during the 2024 election campaign, he surely did so with Lowe in mind.
But upon entering parliament, Lowe has established a profile entirely of his own. Today, he is touted as a future Reform leader by some very influential individuals — including, it would appear, himself.
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To some extent, Lowe’s burgeoning profile is due to the sheer number of parliamentary questions he asks of ministers — 958 at the time this newsletter entered your inbox. Since the state opening of parliament on 17 July, that is an average of over four a day. (Browse the Reform Grand Inquisitor’s archive of questions for yourself here.)
But Lowe’s prominence owes rather a lot more to his social media following and incessant online commentary. The Reform MP’s X posts regularly — nay always — go viral, thanks to his over 300,000 follower base. In fact, according to research by Cavendish Consulting, Lowe has earned more money posting on X — due to the platform’s monetisation strategy — than Farage himself, implying a greater reach.
For his X conspicuousness, Lowe is indebted to one man: tech billionaire, MAGA efficiency tsar and social media baron Elon Musk.
Lowe was at the centre of the row between Reform and Musk in January of this year, after the X owner savaged Farage for not having “what it takes” to lead the party. Musk simply could not, in good conscience, endorse Farage due to his long-held opposition to far-right activist Tommy Robinson. The blazing row unsurprisingly dampened speculation that Musk would make a $100 million (£80.5m) donation to Reform.
At the time, Musk responded to an X post asking if Lowe should be made party leader with the following statement: “I have not met Rupert Lowe, but his statements online that I have read so far make a lot of sense”.
The Norfolk MP, flattered, nonetheless rowed in behind his leader. He posted to X (where else?): “Nigel is leader of Reform. He made Brexit happen, and for that I will always be grateful.
“I look forward to working with Nigel and the entire team to continue to hold this incompetent Labour Party to account, democratise our own party, win the next election and form a Reform government.”
He agreed with Farage that Robinson was “not right for Reform” and thanked Musk for his “kind comments”.
But Lowe’s intensifying engagement with the Online Right since January would suggest Musk’s endorsement went straight to his head. His commentary on X has become more relentless; his posts make greater use of capitalisation, they contain more leading questions. In a viral missive yesterday (10,000 retweets, 58,000 likes), Lowe declared: “Young white men must be looking at the country and thinking — what have we done wrong?…
“There is NOTHING wrong with being white. There is NOTHING wrong with being male. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
Another recent post reads: “DEI [Diversity, Equity and Inclusion] is a wicked, malicious, viperous cancer that needs to be forensically eradicated from all of our lives.”
Lowe is also at the centre of Reform’s deepening dilemma on Ukraine. With Farage floundering, Reform’s business and agriculture spokesperson used his X platform this week to freelance over the issue. A long post of his begins thusly: “British boots on the ground in Ukraine — I have lots of questions…”
Perhaps more pertinently, in an interview with the Sun‘s Never Mind the Ballots YouTube show on 12 February, Lowe appeared to defend Tommy Robinson, saying he deserves “to be given the credit for the things he’s done right”.
Lowe insisted: “I say he’s not right for Reform, he doesn’t want to be right for Reform, but he doesn’t deserve not to be given the credit for the things that he’s done.”
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Since mid-February, Lowe has retweeted Elon Musk’s X posts several times — but he has not shared Farage’s musings once. His last Farage-endorsing repost, as far as this social media surveyor can establish, was on 12 February. For the online right, retweets are the medium through which mutually interested parties establish relationships and show solidarity. Lowe has not signalled his support for Farage in weeks.
Lowe’s remarks on Wednesday, delivered in a Daily Mail interview, reinforce such analysis. Speaking to Andrew Pierce, Lowe said it is “too early” to tell whether his party leader can “deliver the goods”.
He added: “He can only deliver if he surrounds himself with the right people.
“Nigel is a fiercely independent individual and is extremely good at what we have done so far. He has got messianic qualities. Will those messianic qualities distil into sage leadership? I don’t know.”
Reflecting on the challenges Reform UK faces, Lowe went on: “We have to change from being a protest party led by the Messiah into being a properly structured party with a frontbench, which we don’t have. We have to start behaving as if we are leading and not merely protesting.”
This morning, Farage responded to Lowe’s criticism via the Telegraph. He told the paper: “It’s difficult to have a front bench with only five MPs, isn’t it? And he’s one of them.”
Pressed on his colleague’s remarks about his delegating skills, he said: “Delegate? I’ve delegated everything.”
He added: “If we had 30 MPs, we’d have a front bench, but with five, we can’t.”
Nor are Lowe’s comments in his Mail sit-down the first indication of his ambition. In a podcast interview with The Spectator Australia last month, the Reform MP declared he is “definitely” willing to become prime minister.
Lowe said: “Would I do it if I had to? Well, look, I love the country, and I if I had to do it, I think I would definitely do it. But I mean, we’ve got Nigel Farage, who’s our leader, and at the end of the day, we’re now leading the polls. He’s favourite to be prime minister.
“I’m still pretty long odds, but who knows? I mean, if circumstances demanded it, would I enjoy doing a bit of quango-bashing? You bet I would.”
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Lowe’s ambition, stoked by Musk and his legions of Online Right supporters, has emerged as a serious problem for Farage. The Reform MP for Great Yarmouth has become hostage to X’s incentives and algorithms — which reward scathing, snappish takes.
In a piece on Farage’s Ukraine difficulties this week, I noted: “Right-of-Conservative parties, however small, have tended to schism into factional conflict sooner or later.”
In this vein, I recall a session of PMQs in 2015, when then-prime minister David Cameron quipped of UKIP MP Douglas Carswell, who had defected to Farage’s party from the Conservatives: “He has made some history because as a party of one, he has managed to have a backbench rebellion, which is something to be admired.”
Carswell and Farage were never the easiest of bedfellows, despite an apparent ideological affinity. Their battles echo the tense relationship that is developing between Farage and Lowe.
New YouGov polling, published yesterday, revealed the number of Britons with a favourable view of Farage has dropped from 30 per cent in mid-February to 26 per cent. This is versus two-thirds of the public (65 per cent) seeing Farage in a negative light, up from 60 per cent.
As Reform struggles to set out its foreign policy stall, Farage’s insurgency risks being snuffed out by factionalism and self-inflicted errors.
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