Latest news with #RestoreBritain
Spectator
8 hours ago
- Business
- Spectator
The new right is splintering
When Elon Musk tweeted his vision for an 'America Party', he ignited a firestorm of hope and scepticism. The idea was inspired by his anger for Donald Trump's $5 trillion spending bill. In the UK, Ben Habib and Rupert Lowe, formerly figures in Reform, have splintered away from Britain's populist party over splits with Nigel Farage. Musk, Habib and Lowe are all disruptors united by disdain for broken systems, and all face harsh electoral realities. In the US, a hypothetical Musk-led party could split the Republican vote, potentially handing Democrats victories. Habib and Lowe could dilute the populist vote in the UK, most of which is currently with Reform. Musk's flirtation with a new political movement stems from his clash with Trump over fiscal policy. Musk's platform – slashing deficits, deregulating business and boosting high-skilled immigration – appeals to tech-savvy moderates and disillusioned independents. On X, Musk has framed himself as a voice for the pragmatic middle, critiquing both parties' extremes. But his vision lacks the cultural red meat – 'America First' border control or anti-woke rhetoric – that fuels Trump's MAGA base. Musk's $250 million investment in America PAC for Trump's 2024 campaign shows his financial clout, but he would struggle to go it alone. The US electoral landscape is unforgiving to new parties. In 1992, Ross Perot's Reform party won 19 per cent of the vote but zero electoral votes, a cautionary tale for any Musk-led venture. State-by-state ballot access laws, such as California's requirement of roughly 131,000 signatures, would also pose logistical hurdles. Musk's wealth – estimated at $400 billion in 2025 – could fund signature drives and ad campaigns, but building a national infrastructure by 2026 is daunting. Republican strategists have suggested that Musk could reshape the party from within, using his America PAC influence and X's narrative-shaping power, rather than risk starting a third party and failing. Others have warned that his centrist pitch – pro-immigration, pro-tech – alienates voters demanding border security and cultural conservatism. Polls, while unconfirmed for 2025, suggest Republicans view third-party efforts sceptically. Across the Atlantic, Habib and Lowe embody a parallel populist surge. Habib has launched a new political party, Advance UK, which he says stands for a 'proud' and 'independent' United Kingdom, where 'the political views you hold won't land you in jail'. It is billed as an alternative to Reform. Lowe, meanwhile, has just launched Restore Britain, a 'movement' that will pressure political parties to 'slash immigration, protect British culture, restore Christian principles, carpet-bomb the cancer of wokery'. The UK's first-past-the-post system is brutal – Reform's 14 per cent in 2024 yielded just five MPs – and so a fragmented populist vote could split the right and gift Labour seats. Populism in the US and UK shares politics but fights different battles. Musk decries bureaucratic bloat and unfulfilled 2016 promises, while Habib and Lowe target Labour's cultural shifts and attack Farage personally. Musk's X is the transatlantic wildcard, shaping narratives but fuelling polarisation. Reports earlier this year suggested Musk was thinking about making a significant investment in UK politics. In the US, his $250 million America PAC war chest (and X's reach) give him leverage, but Republican loyalties and the Electoral College limit third-party impact. Disruption without cohesion breeds division. The US and the UK need fresh ideas, but splitting conservative votes could empower the elites they oppose. The lesson is clear: conservatives must channel their zeal to reform existing parties from within. To do otherwise risks electoral failure.
Spectator
2 days ago
- 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.
The Independent
2 days ago
- Politics
- The Independent
How does Rupert Lowe's Restore Britain differ from Reform UK?
Just when you thought politics couldn't fragment any further, along come two new political movements on the far right, both spawned from Reform UK like replicating amoebae. The very newest is 'Restore Britain', which proclaims it is not a party but a 'movement'. That one is led by former Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe. The other is the creation of former Reform UK deputy leader Ben Habib, and is a party, albeit a slightly peculiar one. Habib was sacked from his Reform role by Nigel Farage after the general election last year, and left what he called 'the cult' soon afterwards. Although Reform UK is still arguably the main force on the right of British politics, with a comfortable polling lead over the Conservatives, it has many smaller competitors, and has itself – including in its previous incarnations (Ukip, Brexit Party) – shown a distinct tendency to splinter at the first sign of success. After all, its chair, Zia Yusuf, recently resigned and un-resigned in one day. They're a volatile lot. Hasn't Habib got a party already? Well, he did have. 'Integrity' was its name. It actually never registered with the Electoral Commission, and as a corporate entity it has now been renamed Advance UK Party Limited, according to the records at Companies House. Integrity Party Limited was originally incorporated on 19 November 2024. Its directors were Habib himself; Christian Russell (resigned 11 April 2025); Richard Shaw (also resigned on 11 April); and Mohammad Sohail (resigned 13 December 2024). So Habib is apparently now its sole director, and he is the only 'person with significant control', holding, directly or indirectly, 75 per cent or more of the shares in the company. So is it democratic? That remains to be seen. It's curious, because one of the reasons Habib gave for leaving Reform UK was the personal control Farage exerted on Reform UK Limited – but this has now altered significantly (albeit Farage would still be practically impossible for the membership to depose). For what it's worth, Advance UK seems to have an extremely complex, opaque and unworkable system of governance, as part private company and part conventional political party. So: the board of directors (currently just Habib) approves policy and 'oversees' what is referred to as 'the leadership', while party members elect 'the college', which elects the leader and can remove him or her. (Habib is officially 'leader in waiting'.) The college is overseen by its chair, who is also the chair of the board of directors (Habib, presumably). It's almost as if Habib deliberately created a structure guaranteed to create internal friction and splits because he enjoys a ruckus, and likes things done his way or not at all. Not unlike Farage, Yusuf, Lee Anderson, and Lowe, in fact. Is it extremist? Quite possibly. Habib got into some bother last year when, as a Reform UK spokesperson, he advocated leaving migrants to drown in the sea if they refused the offer of a boat that would return them to France: 'We could, as an idea, provide them with another dinghy into which to climb and then go back to France. If they choose to scupper that dinghy, then yes, they have to suffer the consequences of their actions.' Challenged by the Talk TV host Julia Hartley-Brewer on whether he would leave them to die, he added: 'Absolutely: they cannot be infantalised to the point that we become hostage to fortune.' Sadly, some agree with him. It's a crowded field, though? Indeed, as the far-right fringe tends to be (mirroring the far left, as it happens). There's also the remains of Ukip, now run militantly by street politician Nick Tenconi (after the previous leader defected to Reform); Reclaim, led by Laurence Fox, though it's electorally inactive; and the 'SDP', which it's fair to say is unrecognisable to those who recall the 1981 Roy Jenkins version. There's also the Heritage Party, English Democrats, BNP and Britain First. Plus others. Could it work? Maybe if it got massive financial support from Elon Musk – he's no fan of Farage, and favours Rupert Lowe, but Lowe is not leading Advance UK. What of Rupert Lowe and Restore Britain? Aside from the Farage factor, an even more extreme 'mass deportation' stance, and an obsession with grooming gangs, it is hard to see how Restore Britain really differs that much from Reform UK, Advance UK, or various of the other organisations. In fact, eccentric as ever – or maybe cunningly – Lowe has thrown his movement open to people in any party 'if they share our values and want to be part of a bottom-up movement that has the potential to transform Britain'. Indeed, Habib, on the day he launched his own party, also joined Restore Britain; Lowe, however, shows no sign of joining Advance UK. Habib claims to be in constant touch with the maverick anti-burqa MP. Will they split the right-wing vote? Not to any noticeable degree. Advance, Ukip, Reclaim and the others will probably continue to have negligible electoral impact, generally lacking resources, mass membership, well-known personalities, local organisations, sympathetic coverage in the right-wing press, or their own television station – all advantages enjoyed by Reform UK, which of course also now has a significant body of elected representatives (though these are inexperienced at best). The scrap between the Conservatives and Reform remains the more significant one, bearing in mind that closer links between those two would also alienate moderate pro-Europe Tories who would then back the Lib Dems or Labour instead, basically out of fear and loathing of Farage. 'Unite the right' sounds appealing, but it would mean the end of the Tories, so it won't happen at national level. Under first-past-the-post, the next election could be quite chaotic. Anyone else on the extreme-right populist bandwagon? The cynically minded might add Keir Starmer and the Labour Party, who, at least in their 'island of strangers' moments, seem to have the attitude that 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'. Joking aside, some centre-left and centre-right parties in Europe have become increasingly hardline on immigration, albeit none want to leave the EU. They're not that mad.
The Sun
2 days ago
- Politics
- The Sun
Axed Reform MP Rupert Lowe launches new movement to ‘carpet-bomb wokery' and slash migration
AXED Reform MP Rupert Lowe has launched a new political movement to 'carpet-bomb the cancer of wokery' and slash migration. The independent right-winger today insisted his 'Restore Britain' project was not a new party - although it will be viewed as a rival to his friend-turned-foe Nigel Farage. 1 Mr Lowe was booted out of Reform following accusations of bullying and threats towards then chairman Zia Yusuf which he has strongly denied. But the Great Yarmouth MP has remained vocal in the Commons especially on driving up deportations and the rape gangs scandal. Mr Lowe said Restore Britain would argue for 'low tax, a small state, to slash immigration, protect British culture, restore Christian principles, carpet-bomb the cancer of wokery, fight lawfare, empower individual enterprise, and plenty more.' He added: 'Where appropriate - private prosecutions will be launched, legal challenges brought, and judicial reviews funded. We will fund independent investigative journalists to root out corruption, and an FOI taskforce to expose Government waste. 'A unit specifically for whistleblowers will be established to amplify their concerns - 2029 is the ultimate objective, but that does not mean we cannot effect real and positive change in the next four years. If we don't, there won't be a Britain to restore.' Mr Lowe fell out spectacularly with Mr Farage, with the once political allies locking horns in a public spat. Reform reported Mr Lowe to the police over alleged threats to Mr Yusuf. A subsequent investigation was dropped by the cops. Mr Lowe had accused Mr Farage of running Reform like a 'cult' and accused him of trying to launch a 'political assassination'.
