How a deal between Farage and Lowe could implode, according to insiders

Sitting in his living room and staring down a camera lens, Rupert Lowe made a bold offer on Sunday to his former boss turned bitter enemy, Nigel Farage. “Nigel, my message is simple,” the Restore Britain leader gravely intoned in a 12-minute video posted on X, which as racked up 4.6 million views. “If you are prepared to work together around serious policies, serious reform and serious government, then so are we.” The time had come, Lowe asserted, for the two men to “put our differences aside” and for Reform UK and Restore to “co-operate for the good of the country that we all love”. Shorts It came after the results of the Manchester mayoral election saw his fledgling party again do better than expected, picking up 9 per cent of the vote. This followed 7 per cent in the Makerfield by-election. Not enough to have seen a united party of the hard right beat Labour but enough, as Farage has said, to do serious damage to Reform at a general election. No love lost between Farage and Lowe There was, of course, a catch in Lowe’s offer. He would only strike a pact if Reform agreed to “five fundamental principles”: mass deportation of all illegal immigrants, “reversing the Islamification of Britain”, a referendum on restoring the death penalty, “enormous cuts” to public spending and barring former Conservative ministers who had defected to Reform – i.e. Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman – from a future cabinet. A day later, in a press conference in London, Farage delivered his response. “If it was the offer of a deal, it came in a very unusual way,” he said. “I have responded to it potentially, you know, with an open mind, as I would, but I’m certainly not going to be ditching people who I view to be allies and a great asset.” In short, no headlong rush into negotiations, but a door seemingly left ajar. Despite these overtures, insiders in both Reform and Restore think that the copious bad blood between Farage and Lowe will in the long-run prevent them from uniting. The roots in the schism between Reform and Restore date back to the spring of 2025, when Farage unceremoniously chucked Lowe out of Reform following bullying allegations (accusations which Lowe continues to deny). Lowe then launched Restore Britain as an alternative hard-right party in February of this year. Insiders in both parties acknowledge that there is a large overlap in their policy programmes, particularly when it comes to hard-line immigration measures. Both parties are also horrified by the idea that splits on the right could hand the next election to what Lowe has called a “looming left-wing alliance” which he claims will “finish off what hope remains for this country”. Deep-seated distrust between both parties While some sort of electoral alliance or even merger might therefore seem a no-brainer, a rapprochement is complicated by personality clashes, disagreements over strategy and subtle but significant differences in Farage and Lowe’s world-views. The personal distrust between Farage and Lowe is deep-seated and shared by their respective parties. Within Reform, the general view is that Lowe sprung his offer on Farage with the express purpose of embarrassing him and eliciting a rebuff. A well-connected Reform councillor said: “If there was ever any sort of approach between parties to be had, it’s done in private – it’s done quite often initially through intermediaries. “[It’s] not done through the public arena with a video with a very long shopping list – well it was a list of demands rather than a shopping list.” While Lowe said in his video that he was “reaching out”, the councillor said it was more like “reaching out with punches”. Lowe ‘too attached to his public profile’ As well as regarding Lowe’s approach as disingenuous, many Reformers believe he has become too attached to his public profile to countenance standing down his Restore troops or rowing in behind Farage. “Course he won’t,” a senior Reform source said. “His ego won’t allow him to.” In policy terms, the broad agreement on immigration belies differences in other areas, with Reform insiders dismissing a number of the items on Lowe’s “shopping list” as too extreme. Lowe’s demand for “the banning of both halal and kosher slaughter” – a subsidiary to his “red line” on reducing the place of Islam in British life – stands out, but so too does his framing of the capital punishment referendum. In his video, Lowe named several notorious criminals residing in British prisons. “Keeping these monsters alive and hundreds just like them achieves nothing,” he said. The prospect of retrospective death penalties was too much even for some Reformers. The senior Reform source said: “He actually specifies named people. Backdated. What the f**k?” For their part, Restore insiders are equally sceptical about the viability of a pact, with many seeing Reform as untrustworthy and excessively squeamish when it comes to implementing the hard-line policies which they think the country needs. A Restore source said: “A lot of Reform voters and Restore voters think the same, but a lot of our supporters think we are the ones who will actually deliver on those… Reform water down their policies every five minutes.” They added: “We don’t want Conservatives who allowed mass migration in cabinet. Rupert isn’t saying kick Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman out of Reform, he’s just saying don’t give them a cabinet job. It’s the definition of insanity to do the same thing and expect a different result.” ‘Nigel is only in it for himself’ There is particular animus when it comes to Farage. “I don’t trust Nigel,” the Restore source said. “Nigel’s only in it for himself. I genuinely believe Farage hasn’t got long left. I think there will be a second by-election in Clacton, and he will decide he doesn’t want the hassle and disappear off to America.” Restore’s spokeswoman on women and girls’ safety, Orla Minihane, echoed the sentiment. She said that Farage’s vow to stand by Braverman and others Tory defectors because “I don’t ditch my allies” was rank hypocrisy. “All this ‘I don’t turn my back on my friends, I don’t throw people under the bus.’ Look what you did to Rupert,” she said. “Nigel doesn’t want to be PM. He wants to win. He’s doing Clacton to show that he’s still got public support. ‘Look at me. I don’t care what you do to me. The public still love me.’ It’s narcissistic. That’s all it’s about. It’s all bullshit… Nigel wants money. Money, notoriety, and to win. That’s all he’s ever been about.” While Reformers feel Lowe’s offer was disingenuous, Restore level the same accusation when it comes to the response – particularly Farage and other Reform supporters making light of the offer on TV. Minihane said: “What I can live with is a response that is ‘no, we’re not interested. No, we don’t agree on these points’. Fine, but have the decency to respond respectfully, and don’t have your entourage of minions laughing on national TV and making fun of it.” Reform-Restore rivalry is not just about personalities On the demands themselves, she predicted that Lowe’s ultimatum on Islam would not be met by Reform. “There are so many Muslims in the party, and so many senior Muslims, they won’t agree to it,” she said. The animosity between Reform and Restore is not just about personalities, but rooted in a deeper divergence on ideology and strategy. According to Charlie Buckley, a senior associate at the More in Common think-tank, Farage has spent months trying to broaden Reform’s electoral coalition by appealing to voters who have previously backed the mainstream parties. It means Farage has been wary about adopting positions which could be viewed as “nativist” or even “ethnonationalist”. While Lowe strenuously denies that he holds the latter point of view, he talks about “restoring” Britain’s “demographic security” and has called claims about a future decline in the white British population “demographic vandalism”. He has also praised the far-right activist and convicted criminal Tommy Robinson, whom Farage has always distanced himself from. Buckley said that while Reform is currently haemorrhaging some votes to Restore, cosying up to Lowe could “spook” the party’s more moderate supporters, meaning that Farage has a “lot more to lose” than gain from a pact. Robert Ford, professor of politics at Manchester University, said that when Farage was leading the UK Independence Party, he had rejected a similar electoral offer from the far-right British National Party in 2008 “because he felt the taint of the BNP’s extremism would be damaging to Ukip’s prospects in the long term”. However, he said that Restore did not seem to have the same connotations yet in the public consciousness. Despite the formidable hurdles to a reconciliation between Reform and Restore, some on the populist right undoubtedly still yearn for it. A source close to senior Reform leaders said that while “egos” at the top of Restore were an impediment, there was a hope that Lowe could become “more amenable to senior level co-operation” as time went on. “Co-operation is positive to unite the right,” they said. “There are numerous ways to co-operate – not just a formal pact.”