Will Rupert Lowe break up Reform?

Beware the People's Front of Reform.

This article was first published in Unherd in early March. All articles published elsewhere are published free here; but for paywalled articles & postscripts, subscribe below.

Just a few days ago, the talk on the right was the inevitable – indeed, even imminent – collapse of the Conservatives. The lights were going out at Matthew Parker Street; it seemed the only way of keeping them on would be for Farage to move in. But far from ousting the party from their headquarters, Farage is now taking on the Tories on their strongest suit; interminable internecine party wranglings.

Farage’s thinly-disguised hatchet job to oust Rupert Lowe is far from the first time he has fallen victim to Tall Poppy Syndrome.

There are now reports that Lowe may team up with a former deputy leader of Reform, who quit the party last year citing concerns over the way it was run, in a breakaway right-wing faction. The proposal came from former Brexit Party MEP Ben Habib, a vocal Farage critic, who revealed he is “constantly in touch” with Lowe. Dissatisfaction with Farage’s leadership is not limited to an inner ring, either; early this year 12 councillors left the party en-masse, citing Farage’s leadership as ‘autocratic’. Two thousand members have already left the party in protest at Lowe’s ousting, too.

Should the two decide to splinter off, they will certainly not be alone. And whilst the path for any nascent right-wing party may be difficult, Reform itself has proved it is not impossible; volatility amongst voters has been rising for more than a decade, and 2024 saw a new record for aggregate volatility - indicating the biggest change in party vote shares for nearly a century. Once voters have changed their allegiance once, it becomes increasingly easy to change their allegiance going forward; so whilst Farage may be on the up now, high levels of voter volatility mean this may not be the case forever.

Farage has become a living avatar for dissatisfaction with the political consensus, but a deeply imperfect one for enacting any change to it. He is a media performer rather than a policy wonk and, whilst he is undoubtedly an excellent one, Reform’s current policy offering is remarkably thin. On what should be Reform’s bread and butter - immigration - Farage has softened, and has clearly been increasingly outflanked by other right wing figures – not just by Lowe, but increasingly by figures from the conservatives, sure as Robert Jenrick. Without Lowe, who alone accounted for 40% of Reform’s total parliamentary activity, as well as providing a steady stream of headlines. It is more than arguable Farage’s decision to cut Lowe out was to prevent his popularity, as well as his work rate, exceeding his own.

Farage’s problem with tall poppies forces Reform to be reliant on him. But can a movement be built around one man? If it is to govern well it is out of the question, and it is arguable whether it is enough to propel him into power in the first place; as well as being the most popular politicians in the country, Farage is amongst the most unpopular. This is a phenomenon replicated even within his own party; a YouGov survey conducted on Sunday and Monday found that 21% of Reform UK voters believe the party would perform "a lot better" without Farage, while an additional 12% think it would do "a little better." And if Reform is built solely around Farage, it may die as soon as he decides to leave for America again; a space may be open for a party of individual talents – if they are prepared to try and outlast him.

But the biggest winner in all this may be Kemi Badenoch. So far, she has employed a “sit back and at ‘em” style that the Duke of Wellington would be proud of, trusting that she had enough time before the election to set the Conservative house in order. Her most useful weapon, whether by inclination or design, has been time; and Farage may have just given her Blücher.