The party dragging Nigel Farage further to the right

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:08Today, is Restore Britain making politics even more toxic?

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0:58with the makerfield by-election only weeks away many see it as a two-horse race there's labour's potential pm-in-waiting andy burnham and reform uk's robert kenyon who's faced criticism over alleged sexist remarks but there's another player that's worth paying close attention to I do think immigration needs sorting out because it feeds into the local area. You know, even just things like traffic, you know, you can't get anywhere.

1:28Rebecca Shepard, the candidate for Restore Britain, a new party led by Rupert Lowe, the former Reform UK MP who famously fell out with Nigel Farage last year. I've tried to work within the system, but I can no longer pretend that the existing political structures are capable of delivering the scale of change this country now needs. That is why today I am launching Restore Britain as a national political party. Restore is currently polling third in Makerfield. You told the Daily Mail that you would put illegal immigrants and asylum seekers in, quote, a tented camp with a minimum amount of food.

2:11There are islands off the Scottish and English coasts where they can be detained. Put them there and let the midges do the rest. Do you mean that? I did say that. And I stand by my opinion. People who arrive here illegally should be detained and deported. And though the party was only officially registered this year, its founder has been making headlines for espousing some of the most extreme views in British politics. We are seeing increasing numbers of people coming here illegally and equally I think a lot of them have very low IQ. you.

2:54Currently polling at 7 % in Makerfield, could Restore ruin reform's chances of a by-election win? From The Guardian, I'm Lucy Hoff. Today in Focus, Restore Britain, the party pushing British politics even further to the right.

3:16Daniel Trilling, you are a journalist who spent nearly two decades writing about far-right politics and you've just written a new book, If We Tolerate This, and you trace how since the 2010s the language of that far-right politics has crept so much into the mainstream. I wonder if you think, if we jump back to that moment, could we imagine that we'd be talking about a party like Restore Britain as we are now in relatively normalised terms?

3:42Daniel Trilling:Yeah, I ask myself that quite often, actually, like if you went back to me in 2010 or so, when I was reporting on the BNP, the British National Party, who were, you know, this very extreme party founded by neo-Nazis. I was sharing, I shared a platform with David Jig, who was once a leader of A. Klu Klux Klan, always a totally non-violent one, incidentally. Do you?

4:09Daniel Trilling:whose ideas at the time were regarded as completely beyond the pale, certainly in mainstream politics. Let me show you what happened to the BNP's share of the vote. It actually went down here. In 15 or more years down the line, there's going to be quite similar-sounding ideas circulating at the very highest level. Would I have been surprised? I suppose my answer is yes and no. Back then I thought, you know, this is marginal. now, but there are things happening that could make this go much more mainstream, particularly if these ideas are taken up by people with less of an obvious connection to fascism and neo-Nazism.

4:44Daniel Trilling:But what I think I've been quite taken aback by and what prompted me to write the new book is just how rapidly things have got worse in the last, say, three to five years where, you know, we've had far right populism building for a while in the UK, like in other countries. But it just seems like in the last few years, there's been this opening of the floodgates where very extreme ethno-nationalist racist rhetoric is suddenly there right at the forefront of British politics. So how big is Restore Britain at the moment? Because it's become quite a substantial party already. Yeah. So Restore began as a pressure group founded just over a year ago when Rupert Lowe left reform after falling out with with reform's leadership but we need an alternative to the reds and the blues and now the light blues if you want to call them that so a new movement and then it was launched as a political party only this February here on the farm I am now launching restore Britain as a national political party.

5:48I'm now going to dedicate my...

5:50Daniel Trilling:So for a party as new as Restore and one of its size opinion polls, quite provisional, but it looks like at the moment they're polling anywhere between two or three percent and maybe six or seven percent. And Restore claims to have over 100 ,000 members at the moment, which would make it one of the biggest parties by membership in the UK. I think you have to take those figures with a pinch of salt. Because they're saying that's Bigger than the Conservative Party. Yeah. And I mean, the important factor actually is that they're this big online phenomenon. And Rupert Lowe, again, is one of the biggest UK politics social media figures now.

6:26Daniel Trilling:I mean, he's got just under 800 ,000 followers on X, which is not the largest amount. But his posts have got a much bigger reach because he's tapping into the far right discourse that is now very prevalent on that platform and also earning a lot of money out of it. He earns, according to Parliament's Register of MPs' interests, so far£72 ,000 just from posting on X since being elected as an MP.

6:56So on Today in Focus, in the spring last year, we talked about the figure of Rupert Lowe, his falling out with Nigel Farage and his expulsion from Reform UK with accusations that he denies of bullying. He'd notably disagreed with Farage on a number of issues at that point on mass deportations, but also on Tommy Robinson, the far right activist who Farage felt was not welcome in reform. Rupert Lowe disagreed. How would you describe the politics that Restore is selling in contrast with reform perhaps?

7:30Daniel Trilling:You know, like many other liberal democracies around the world at the moment, we are seeing this surge in support for radical right wing nationalist ideas that have sat traditionally outside of the mainstream of politics. And those are being voiced by a range of different groups who they don't necessarily get on with one another, but they're all fishing in the same waters. They're all proposing ways in which to redraw the boundaries of national identity. And they set themselves in very strong opposition, not only to certain groups they label as outsiders, but traditional political elites. And within that, there is always this tension between moderation and radicalism.

8:11Daniel Trilling:The most hardline bits of this loose movement, someone like Tommy Robinson, for instance, it's in their interest to sound as frightening and intimidating as possible because someone like him is primarily engaged in street activism and online activity. Anytime anybody tries to build a successful electoral project with some of these elements, they've got this problem that, you know, to win votes and to move beyond your core support, you have to sound more moderate. You have to not scare people. For 15 years, really, Nigel Farage has monopolised the space. As reform has grown way beyond any previous project of that sort, you're seeing that tension really come to the fore.

8:51Daniel Trilling:So low split with Reform UK over what looks like a mix of personality clashes, which are always very common. Totally unsurprising. Exactly. But also a feeling that Farage was being too moderate. Zero immigration, net zero immigration is weak, weak, weak. It is insufficient and it is too late. The barbarians are already in the gates. Restore have positioned themselves as a harder line alternative to reform, where they're pushing for an even more extreme policy of deportations for unauthorised migrants, but the rhetoric around that, I think, is quite shockingly extreme as well. So launching Restore Britain as a political party, Rupert Lowe said millions must go.

9:49Daniel Trilling:They're also very strongly against the Online Safety Act, which there's a debate about more broadly in politics, but I think because they're a party that thrives on this unregulated social media environment, and particularly the environment on X, which has been deliberately allowed to turn into a cesspit. I think agitating for less restrictions on what you can say and do online is also kind of quite fundamental to them politically. I think this act is a wolf in sheep's clothing. It tries to justify itself on the basis that it's acting in the interest of child safety. The reality is, as you say, it's a backdoor to censorship.

10:31and to more issues.

10:33Daniel Trilling:The other area in which they're different rhetorically from reform is their idea of what national identity is and their particular form of nationalism. So a successful right-wing populist project in Britain has always had to align itself very carefully with civic nationalism. So the idea that national identity is not primarily ethnic, you might want some sort of ethnic and cultural homogeneity, but you are also at the very least paying lip service to the fact that Britain is a multi-ethnic society and that's something we accept and perhaps even welcome to a degree. Restore Britain have taken a position that is much more close to ethnic nationalism, that to be British means to be descended from people who have lived here for centuries and to follow Christianity as a religion, for instance.

11:27Daniel Trilling:So that's something that a senior official in Restore Britain has posted online in the past, that to be British, you have to be ethnically and culturally, which really means white and Christian. More than anything, it is Christian faith. It is ancestry and it's Christian faith. So if you're not a Christian, you can't be British? Which explains, I think, one of the other things that Restore Britain and Rupert Lowe personally has made a huge issue of, which is the grooming gang scandal. He crowdfunded nearly£800 ,000 to set up his own inquiry into grooming gangs. Yeah, something that's fundamental to these radical right-wing nationalist movements around the world is that they're always looking for issues that will excite a visceral sense of threat to the nation.

12:15Daniel Trilling:And those almost always come down to issues around sex, birth and death. So it's about, you know, the indigenous population or citizens being outbred by immigrants or very often you will find right-wing nationalists alighting on issues where there's a mix of crime, sexual abuse and ethnic or cultural difference. And so obviously the grooming gangs scandal, there's a very important political debate around what happened, could it have been stopped, what lessons can be learned and so on across the whole spectrum of politics. But the reason why the radical right latches onto it is because it's got these other uses.

12:57Daniel Trilling:You know, it excites this fear and disgust among the people that they are trying to win the support of. And so Rupert Lowe has made that a big campaigning point himself. He set up this independent, self-described rape gangs inquiry, which is only looking at these grooming cases rather than other issues of systematic sexual abuse or establishment cover ups. and so on. That's been funded by several hundred thousand pounds in donations. They say that they're preparing a report at the moment and Lo is promising to use parliamentary privilege because he's still an MP to name perpetrators or people responsible for allowing this to happen.

13:37Daniel Trilling:So that's kind of got the form of a more mainstream political inquiry, but that's not what it's about. I mean, And essentially that is, I think, encouraging a form of mob justice and kangaroo courts and so on. There was a very surreal press conference, wasn't there? Today we open the hearings of our independent rape gang inquiry. Two full weeks of evidence, testimony and scrutiny. There's a panel of people, Rupert Lowe at the centre, with rape gangs inquiry behind, sort of replicating a traditional inquiry. It's political theatre. And, you know, to make that your sole campaigning point around issues of sexual abuse, when you've got historic scandals like Jimmy Savile being allowed to operate as a very well known BBC entertainer for years and years.

14:22Daniel Trilling:So there is plenty to talk about in that area. And I think it's always a big red flag when you have a political campaigner like Rupert Lowe just homing in on the one area of systematic abuse that allows him and others to make claims about Muslims, immigrants, cultural difference and so on. I don't call them grooming gangs. I call it Pakistani rape gangs because 95 % of these people are Pakistanis and very often from a particular part of Pakistan. That's absolutely not true. So it is true. It is true. But anyway, let's... In 2023, no, I'm going to tell you this. Let's park that. 224 white grooming gang suspects were found compared to 22 Pakistani suspects.

15:03Why do you only talk about the Pakistani grooming gang? That's police statistics from the Times. I've now got on my... It's police statistics from the Times. If you look at my rape gang inquiry, which you asked me about... And I suppose to that point last week, Lo, at the launch of Restore's campaign in Makerfield, compared the Labour response to the Grooming Gang scandal as denial of something equivalent to the Holocaust, which has caused, understandably and justifiably, a huge backlash. What other extreme things are he and others on the record as saying?

15:33Daniel Trilling:So Rupert Lowe has also in the past praised Tommy Robinson. He said he deserves credit for all the work that he's done around grooming gangs. I think if somebody's done something valuable and has been proved correct, which Tommy Robinson has, you should give him credit for that. Because Robinson has for a long time agitated around this in an especially unhelpful way, I would say. And there are other figures associated with Restore Britain who have called for remigration, which is the far right euphemism for policies of mass deportation and often is used to apply to legally settled migrants as well as, say, asylum seekers.

16:18Daniel Trilling:So that could potentially cover very large numbers of people living in the UK. And Lowe even said that he would be happy to send asylum seekers to Scotland in the form of internal exile, I suppose, and in his word, let the midges do their work. I would send them to a Scottish island, give them a bowl of porridge and put them in a tent till they decided to go home and let the midges do the rest. I did say that and I mean it. And there has been a lot of reporting about the types of people that Restore Britain is attracting, the kind of more extremist, perhaps disillusioned Reform UK voter who feels that reform is becoming too mainstream.

16:53And therefore, there have been a number of people who are identified as being fascist or neo-Nazi who are part of Restore Britain.

16:59Daniel Trilling:Yeah, and I think this really sums up what's happening. You know, reform have tried to tread this line very carefully where they say we don't accept fascists and neo-Nazis in our party associated with us. Rupert Lowe has positioned Restore Britain slightly to the right of reform but is still trying to mount a respectable electoral project the thing is the sliver of ground between where reform ends and where the fascists and neo-Nazis start is very very thin and so it's clear that Restore is attracting the support of neo-Nazi and fascist activists so Hope Not Hate, the anti-fascist monitoring organisation recently have reported that members of Patriotic Alternative, which is a fascist group formed by former members of the British National Party, have been out in Maker Field campaigning for Restore.

18:08So Restore Britain is attracting these more extremist people, But how would you describe the broader base of its supporters as it grows in size and perhaps becomes more serious of an electoral force?

18:21Daniel Trilling:Well, I think it's appealing to people who, you know, they may well feel that the system isn't working for them or that the part of the country they live in has been abandoned by the political centre, by the centre of power in London and Westminster and so on. But as well as that, they tend to have very hardline views on immigration and identity. They may well tend towards more authoritarian views on certain social issues, crime and punishment and so on, traditional gender roles, perhaps, and so on. Things like support for bringing back the death penalty appeal to the pool of voters that Restore is hoping to pick up support from.

19:02Daniel Trilling:Put it more simply, there is a chunk of the British population that have got very right wing authoritarian views. Most of the time, or at least in most of our lifetimes, mainstream parties have sufficiently appealed to them on other grounds that that hasn't made much of a difference politically. Because of the fragmentation of British politics now, it's becoming possible for parties to scoop up those voters on that basis. The other thing that I think is quite significant about Restore, obviously polling for a party at that scale and such a new party is always a bit of a stab in the dark. But there does seem to be some evidence that Restore's support is coming from people who don't normally vote.

19:43Daniel Trilling:So there's a sign that they're going even beyond what Reform were able to do along those lines and mobilise people who basically had rejected the political system until now. Gosh, that is fascinating and very alarming. there's also the very public support from Elon Musk on X in particular last week he retweeted a post of Lowe's adding that only Restore can save Britain a tweet that got an unbelievable 40 million views how would you describe that relationship because it has been critical to the expansion of Restore hasn't it? Restore and Rupert Lowe have had the very enthusiastic backing of Elon Musk.

20:23Daniel Trilling:Elon Musk obviously is the proprietor of X, for a long time has used that platform to spread his own views on race, identity, quote unquote, wokeness and so on. But since the beginning of 2025, has really latched onto Britain as a place where he wants to push his ideas to intervene in politics. He's done at least half a dozen posts since Restore launched as a political party a few months ago, most of which have had over 10 million views each. He'd already been quite a supporter of Nigel Farage and Reform UK before then. But from 2025 onwards, he's taken this line that Farage is, as Musk put it, weak source, that Farage is too mainstream now, he's kind of sold out the cause.

21:08Daniel Trilling:And that the real heroes are people like Rupert Lowe and Tommy Robinson. And Elon Musk has been a big rhetorical backer of both. He's also actually paid some of Tommy Robinson's legal fees in the past. So there's actually been some financial backing there. In the environment on X where sort of safeguards against hate speech and abusive content and so on have been removed and Musk is pushing these far right ideas, it's created a very fertile ground for Rupert Lowe and Restore to build up a profile that is massively outsized in comparison to their actual support on the ground in the UK. Farage has made his ire quite known that Restore Britain has been getting this sort of amplification by Musk.

21:53How much of a threat would you say Restore are to reform now?

21:58Daniel Trilling:In the immediate term, they're a very pressing threat because the big political challenge at the moment for reform is to win the maker field by election, both because that might well block potential future Labour leader who would be quite effective at taking them on, but also because they've really got to show that they have momentum. Losing to Andy Burnham would both be a logistical, tactical defeat, but also a very symbolic one. And although Restore, I think we're polling around two to three percent nationally, the more detailed polling and reporting that's been done on Maker Field shows that there's potentially a bigger pool of support for Restore there than, you know, the national average.

22:37Daniel Trilling:It's likely, I think, to come down to how many voters there are very online. Going by the latest polls on Makerfield, there is only about 2-3 % between Burnham and Reform's candidate. It could potentially really mess things up for them. The local elections in May this year weren't as rosy for reformers, certainly, as they portrayed it, but I think quite a lot of media commentary portrayed it as well. On the one hand, it's significant that they made these big advances electorally in England, Scotland and Wales. But on the other hand, they weren't quite as big as they were hyped up to be. They really need a win in Makerfield to show that there's still a going concern.