The Rupert Lowe row has exposed Reform UK’s dysfunction under Nigel Farage

When Elon Musk had his epiphany in January and publicly endorsed Rupert Lowe to replace Nigel Farage as leader of Reform UK, I received a message within minutes.

“That’s the end of Rupert. Nigel won’t tolerate that,” said a former ally of Mr Farage.

Two months later, Mr Lowe, the MP for Great Yarmouth and former Southampton football club chair, finds himself suspended from the party. He is facing serious allegations of bullying towards female staff and claims that he made threats of physical violence against the party’s chair. Reform has even referred the matter to the police.

In terms of timing, the ousting came after 48 hours of Mr Lowe creating headlines questioning Mr Farage’s leadership and complaining about the dysfunction in Reform UK.

It did not take long for a number of senior former Reform figures who have been forced out in recent months, including ex-deputy leader Ben Habib and ex-London mayor candidate Howard Cox, to allege that Mr Lowe had been framed.

While investigations will now determine the truth about Mr Lowe’s behaviour, the row has blown open a problem within Reform that has been bubbling below the surface for months now.

The Independent understands that late last month, a senior national campaign organiser who was poached by Reform from the Tories decided to quit because they could no longer put up with the way the party is being run.

They summarise that the surge to the top of the polls by Reform UK has masked a civil war going on behind the scenes, fuelled by competing egos.

And it is noticeable that this is already being picked up in the US. Mr Musk is now not the lone voice questioning whether Mr Farage is the one to deliver a Trump-style right-wing election revolution in the UK. Indeed, a number of eyes had been wandering to Mr Lowe’s posts on X and contributions in parliament with increasingly hardline messages on migration and law and order. Beyond this, conspicuously Mr Farage did not get an effusive reception from Mr Trump and his inner circle for the inauguration.

Apart from Mr Farage himself, the target for those angry with what is going on is the increasingly controversial party chair Zia Yusuf, who in many ways is being seen as the de facto leader of Reform.

Mr Lowe on Saturday morning after the allegations against him went public, pointed to communication issues being at the core of the chaos.

He said: “I’ve run businesses all my life. Some successful, some not. The one thing in common among all of the successful ones? Communication. Clear, honest communication.

“Does requesting regular meetings of MPs make me a monster? Is asking to even just see policy before it’s made public unreasonable? Is it fair to be insulted because I want people to finally talk to each other?

“I have torn out what remaining hair I have left over the last few months trying to talk. That’s it. Just talk. I have tried, and tried, and tried to resolve all of this behind closed doors. I can only smash my head against a brick wall for so long.”

Mr Farage is in many ways one of the most successful and charismatic politicians of the 21st century, at least in the UK. But his achilles heel is his repeated inability to work well with a team; particularly if that team causes him to share the limelight or to cope with potential rivals.

As one figure put it: “It’s Nigel’s way or the highway.”

Mr Lowe is not the only one to feel unheard, unconsulted or set aside.

Some, like Mr Habib and Mr Cox, have gone public with their frustration and criticism. Both have left the party.

Others have been quieter, but many of those are now working on helping the Tories put together an anti-Reform unit with the aid of Conservative Party grandee Sir Bill Cash.

Meanwhile, the chaos has meant former Tory MPs who are considering following their ex-colleagues Andrea Jenkyns and Marco Longhi as defectors have put their decisions on hold.

The treatment of Mr Lowe is also now making several potential defectors think twice about joining Reform. As Tory peer Lord Hayward said, this is the “peak time for defections”, with councillors potentially looking to switch ahead of the local elections.

Current Reform candidates have opened up privately as well, complaining they feel isolated and undervalued with little support even in areas they might win. The lack of communication is a common theme.

It is noticeable that the only person to regularly get top billing on Reform events along with Mr Farage is Mr Yusuf. The speculation is that Mr Farage tolerates sharing the limelight with him because Mr Yusuf is the only one to bring serious money to the party despite the much-heralded arrival of property developer Nick Candy.

Press notices for their mini conferences state that people will hear from “Nigel Farage, Zia Yusuf and many more”. No mention of MPs.

It was noticeable at a recent press conference that Mr Yusuf, who is a peripheral political figure at best, was the only one to sit on the platform with Mr Farage. A relegated deputy leader Richard Tice had to sit in the audience and was allowed up briefly to answer a question on policy before being sent back down again.

Mr Yusuf’s power is already troubling some in the party, and there are even questions over whether he is positioning himself to replace Mr Farage. Interestingly, his Wikipedia entry notes: “Nigel Farage has suggested that Yusuf might one day lead Reform UK.”

He runs the operation “with an iron rod” but apart from an announcement on the party’s change of constitution, there seems to be no serious leadership network across the country.

One senior member has told The Independent they are convinced Mr Yusuf is actually plotting a leadership coup “in plain sight”.

To say that Reform’s response to criticism is thin-skinned would be somewhat of an understatement.

When The Independent recently revealed the apparent hypocrisy of Mr Tice attacking Rachel Reeves for exaggerating her CV when he had overblown some of his achievements, the party’s response was extraordinary.

There were threats of legal action, banning The Independent from events, and “this is a story really not worth The Independent completely ruining its relationship with a party leading in the polls”.

The story ran and, as Kemi Badenoch discovered when Reform made threats to sue her over membership figures, the threats were entirely empty.

But it underlined a certain degree of hubris for a party which has just five MPs and has only been at the top of the polls for a few weeks with no serious evidence that it is about to seize power.

More of a problem is that its “professionalised” press office seems completely unable to answer basic questions or respond to emails.

So questions like, “Who will chair the party board?” simply go unanswered.

Mr Yusuf sacked the well-known and highly respected Westminster operator Gawain Towler while Mr Farage was abroad, and things seem to have gone from bad to worse ever since.

More concerning is that the press office and leadership are unable to say who is leading the party in Wales.

This is an issue because the Welsh parliament elections next year are meant to be a springboard for the party to win power in 2029. Polls suggest they are in the top two and could even potentially hold power, but nobody seems to know what is going on in Wales.

There is a suggestion former Ukip defector Mark Reckless may be a point of contact – he first came to public attention as a Tory MP in 2010 who fell asleep on the terrace in parliament and missed a crucial Budget vote.

The real issue is whether a political party as dysfunctional as Reform UK can continue to surge in the polls.

The polling for The Independent by Techne UK appears to suggest that it has reached a plateau at about 25 per cent. This could be because of the limits of Mr Farage’s appeal or because people are not yet convinced it is a serious party of government – Mr Lowe himself described it as “a party of protest”.

Veteran pollster Lord Robert Hayward told The Independent the support for Reform is based on Mr Farage as a “credible political figure” but also “a general despair with ‘old’ politics”.

He noted: “The Tories are deemed to be incompetent, which is why they left them, and the old Labour base plus ex-Tories now take the same view of Labour!”

In council by-elections, Reform has picked up two seats in England from Labour and two from the Tories. The party appears to be picking up Labour and Tory voters equally but also people who stayed at home in the general election.

Lord Hayward, a Tory peer and former MP, questions whether the current trajectory is sustainable based purely on “dislike of Labour and the Conservatives”.

But he added: “The business with Lowe will hurt them a little, but it will only cause significant damage if it damages Farage himself.”

The big question then is whether Mr Lowe will try to take Mr Farage down with him if Reform presses ahead with its allegations.

Source: UK Politics - www.independent.co.uk