Will Restore Britain Be Reform’s Spoiler? (Part II)
The splinter party seems unlikely to put up large electoral numbers—but it doesn’t need to.
Read the first article in this series here.
It remains to be seen whether Restore Britain can assemble a slate of candidates at local and national elections. The party boasts tens of thousands of members and a clutch of local councilors—some defectors from Reform or the Conservatives—but we do not know if the considerable hype surrounding the party will convert into candidates, votes and MPs. Could Restore do the impossible?
Two opinion polls have given Restore’s activists considerable enthusiasm. One put their support at 7 percent, and another at 10. If these numbers were replicated at an election, that would undoubtedly deprive Reform UK of a majority. But some problems with these polls have been revealed: Both specifically prompted respondents that Restore was Rupert Lowe’s party, arguably tipping the scales. Other pollsters have claimed that public awareness of Lowe is very low, with around 8 percent of the public being able to identify him. This has led critics of Restore to allege that the party is nothing more than an online phenomenon, the preserve of X-users only.
The impressions Restore is getting on X are certainly impressive. Tens of millions of views for its launch videos, as well as large viewing figures for Lowe and his supporters, have given some pause. British right-wing politics is highly online these days, and focused on X in particular. Viral videos by the Reform (formerly Conservative) MP Robert Jenrick on subjects ranging from tool theft to the Chagos Islands deal to people jumping the gates on the London underground have lit up the political conversation in Britain. Reform’s shadow home secretary, Zia Yusuf, has built up a strong online presence and persona of his own, producing well-edited and pugilistic videos to hammer Labour and the Conservatives. Lowe himself has been an effective user of X, preferring the impact that comes from posting rather than writing articles in the legacy media or appearing on TV. While Nigel Farage might not be the most online of modern politicians, his whole ecosystem certainly is, and good numbers on X are clearly an important political currency in Britain today.
But these figures seem like a mirage. They are in large part driven by Elon Musk’s personal advocacy of Lowe, and Restore seems to be generating most excitement among the global right, rather than in Britain, where Restore’s potential voters are. Certainly, some of the positions that Restore activists are pushing, including Christian nationalism (explicitly Roman Catholic in tone), the promotion of English ethnic identity, and hinting at a racial conception of nationhood, are ideas far outside the mainstream in Britain, and indeed many Western countries. A political party that attempts to revive Roman Catholicism in Britain—an overwhelmingly Protestant country by instinct, and irreligious today—is doomed to irrelevance. It is also doubtful whether Lowe himself shares the views of his activists, as Lowe appears to be something of a civic nationalist Thatcherite, rather than an integralist Catholic who believes in an ethnic approach to Englishness.
Restore was established too late for them to stand candidates in May’s local elections. It remains to be seen whether they will make the leap from an online phenomenon to a real political force. On the available evidence, Farage does not need to lose any sleep over his new rival. But politics is a team sport, and leaders like Farage must keep their team together in the pursuit of victory. Reform has to battle the existing establishment, the left, and now a new rival on the right. The stakes could not be higher for Reform UK and for Britain, and the path to the sunlit uplands might have got a little steeper.
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