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Just a few short weeks ago, Nigel Farage’s Reform party was riding high. It was consistently polling above Kemi Badenoch’s Conservative party and in some surveys had even edged ahead of the Labour government.
Donors who had previously handed over large amounts to the Tories were switching sides, while Farage was relishing having the ear of US president Donald Trump, touting himself as a far better representative to the leader of the free world than Keir Starmer.
But US leader’s behaviour towards Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has suddenly dented the appeal of being seen as pro-Trump, and in the past two days, civil war has broken out among Farage’s small group of MPs. First, Rupert Lowe used an interview with the Daily Mail to accuse his leader of being “messianic”, before the party responded by revealing that Lowe had been reported to the police for making physical threats against Reform’s chairman.
This weekend, Ben Habib, the former co-deputy leader of Reform who was himself ousted by Farage, told the Observer he believed the charges against Lowe were unsubstantiated, and part of a “playbook” used against figures who were no longer in favourin the party.
He said: “Everything was coming to a head with Rupert and this has been contrived to damage him. They have lost someone who is highly regarded by members. This is a very damaging development for Reform, and if Nigel wishes to reverse it, then he needs to embrace Rupert very quickly. He needs to listen to what the criticisms are and address them.”
He said there had been a failure to create a proper structure for the party, with checks and balances where the leadership is held to account, and that unless the changes were made, the party would be unlikely to succeed.
Lowe was dramatically dumped from the parliamentary party on Friday. A statement issued by Reform party chairman Zia Yusuf alleged complaints from two female employees about serious bullying in Lowe’s parliamentary and constituency offices.
It said: “Evidence was provided to us of workplace bullying, the targeting of female staff who raised concerns, and evidence of derogatory and discriminatory remarks made about women, including reference to a perceived disability.” It also claimed Lowe had “on at least two occasions made threats of physical violence” against the party chairman, and that a complaint had been made to police. The party said an independent lawyer had been appointed to conduct an investigation.
Scotland Yard said it had received an allegation about the “verbal threats” on Thursday. The complaint concerns an incident or incidents on 13 December and it is unclear why it took so long for a complaint to be made.
In response, Lowe said he had never made derogatory comments about women, or those with disabilities, and that the allegations were “a lie”. He said allegations of physical threats were “outrageous and entirely untrue”.
He said he had been in contact with the lawyer and had been told there was no credible evidence against him.
Julia Stephenson, 62, a Reform party member who campaigned for Farage in the last election, said the WhatsApp groups of party members were “buzzing with horror” at what had happened. She said many party members supported Lowe, as well as Habib, who was ousted as co-deputy leader last summer.
Stephenson said she considered the charges against Lowe to be “trumped up” and spiteful, in response to Lowe’s challenge to the party. “Nobody was a bigger fan than me of Nigel Farage, but I think he has been an absolute disgrace,” she said. “He is a disrupter, but he isn’t very good at setting things up.
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“Nigel just wants to run a protest party. We have no way of removing him as leader. We only have five MPs and if they can’t get along, how on earth can we run a country?
“He gets a great body of support and just slowly falls out with everybody and loses the best people.”
Relations between Farage and Lowe are believed to have become tense earlier this year after Elon Musk called for Farage to be replaced and praised Lowe, saying his online statements “made a lot of sense”.
Gawain Towler, a former director of communications for Reform, said he considered the row was a “minor issue” that had “grown out of all proportions”. He said those criticising Farage needed to consider his role in Reform’s success.
He said: “Nigel has been called many things, but without him in the election we wouldn’t have got any seats. I don’t think [Lowe] realised quite how hard it is to lead a political party. It’s really hard to build a party from scratch.” He said Lowe had seats in the European parliament and Westminster on Farage’s “coat-tails”.
He added: “Nigel will be very frustrated. He has worked for 30 years to get to a point where he can change the country for good. He doesn’t want it to blow up now, does he?”
In a post on X on Saturday morning, Lowe expressed his frustrations over his efforts to ensure the better running of the party, and offered an invitation to Farage. “Please, let’s have dinner and resolve this in a manner that our members, and the country, would expect,” he said.
