Little was expected of Restore Britain when Rupert Lowe broke with Nigel Farage to set up his own right-wing party.
But Lowe’s project has defied expectations and proven a thorn in the side of Farage’s Reform UK – taking a healthy seven percent of the vote in the Makerfield by-election that saw Andy Burnham return to Parliament in June, and 9 percent in the subsequent Manchester mayoral election – beating the Tories in both cases.
It has done so with relatively little scrutiny, as the “respectable image” of Lowe – who has also won the backing of Elon Musk – appeals to some voters.
But some political watchers are warning that of those voting for Restore not all are aware that people at the centre of the party espouse far-right views.
A member of Restore Britain’s policy team, for example, called Kemi Badenoch a “foreigner”, while another has said that many of the party’s activists proudly identify as ethnonationalists – those who believe a country’s identity should be based on ethnicity, rather than other factors such as shared values.
Other high-profile supporters of Restore have called for “remigration” – a term commonly used by the far-right for the repatriation – or removal – of people who are not white British.
Restore founded after fall out with Farage
Restore was founded by the Great Yarmouth MP Lowe in February 2026 after he was ejected from Nigel Farage’s Reform UK in the spring of 2025. He was elected standing for Reform.
Lowe has recruited a group of mainly young men from the digital network of hard-right commentators and influencers often referred to as the Online Right.
Charlie Downes, 25, Restore’s co-founder and campaign director, for example, has been criticised by Jewish groups for implying online that Farage had been “bought” by Jewish supporters, and has also said that Muslims are “less British” than Christians.
Earlier this month, Farage rebuffed the offer of an electoral pact from Lowe unless he removed Downes.
Josh Ferme, who joined Restore’s policy team last month, has publicly referred to the Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch as a “foreigner”.
In January, Ferme posted on X in response to a story about the Leader of the Opposition: “It truly is an analogy for our times that even one of the parties that brought them here in the first place has declined rapidly when managed by a foreigner.”
Badenoch, 46, was born in London as a British citizen to Nigerian parents. She was brought up in Nigeria and the US but returned to the UK at the age of 16.
Ferme, who is a contributor to a controversial right-wing podcast, has also said that only people with English ancestry qualify as English. In an X post in June he said: “The ‘debate’ is settled: English is an ethnicity. A piece of paper does not make you English; having English ancestry does.”
Lowe does not give off same ‘vibe’ as far-right parties
Sunder Katwala, director of the British Future think-tank told The i Paper: “Restore Britain is unique among parties represented in Parliament in actively defending a ‘no boundaries’ policy for party members and even staff and office-holders – right out to those who would insist on deporting half the England football team for not having the right ancestry.
“Rupert Lowe, as a former businessman who chaired a football club (Southampton), has a respectable image, but must decide whether a welcome mat to the most extreme racists in Britain is tenable with seeking to get elected.”
Most people in England do not think that being English is defined by ethnicity. A poll by More in Common in July 2026 found that 79 per cent of people believe that “someone can be English regardless of their skin colour or ethnic background”, with just 16 per cent holding the view that “skin colour and ethnic background are important to whether someone is English”.
Robert Ford, professor of politics at Manchester University, told The i Paper that Restore had so far benefited from having a front man in Lowe who did not give off the same “vibe” as far-right parties such as the British National Party.
Lowe was a successful businessman before going into politics, serving two stints at Southampton FC’s chairman. Ford said: “[The BNP] had its roots in the National Front. People knew what the vibe was, and the vibe was ugly. I think people see Rupert Lowe swilling from a big wine glass and generally being a sort of middle-class boardroom chappie.
“I heard anecdotes on the Makerfield campaign trail that there were people who were saying they were voting Restore because they thought they were more moderate than Reform.”
Lowe has said he “detests” far-right ethnonationalism although he has talked about “restoring” Britain’s “demographic security” and called projections of a future decline in the white British population “demographic vandalism”.
Openly embracing ‘ethno-nationalism’
However, others in Restore openly embrace the term.
Harrison Pitt, another right-wing influencer who is a ‘senior policy fellow’ for Restore, posted on X in June: “I can assure you, Rupert wants to live to see mass migration reversed and demographic security achieved for the native peoples of Britain. In addition to pushing these policies in public, he has told me as much many times in person and I would not devote my time to a party committed to anything less.”
In an interview in 2025, Pitt said that “the Anglo-Celtic peoples of Britain” had been “demographically cheated out of a homogenous homeland of our own”.
In July this year, Pitt responded on X to a post from Elon Musk in which the billionaire said that “anyone who opposes remigration is a traitor”. Pitt said: “Correct. There are humane options besides twiddling our thumbs for the next few decades until we are overrun beyond saving. We would betray our ancestors and endanger our descendants if in the time we have left we sought only to improve the terms of our pre-emptive surrender.”
A third right-wing influencer and Restore backer, Connor Tomlinson, has espoused similar views.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage (left) and Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe arrive at the House of Commons in Westminster after the 2024 election in which they were elected as Reform MPs Maja Smiejkowska/PA WireTomlinson does not work for the party but is friends with Downes and Pitt and has been an outspoken supporter of Lowe’s movement. In April, he posted a picture of himself with placard-bearing Restore activists at the party’s first branch meeting in Bromley, south east London.
In May, he said that former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was not British. Posting on X, he said: “The British people are English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish. They are white. Being British is about heritage. A minority of people have some British and some foreign heritage, and so aren’t white. But exceptions do not disprove the rule. Rishi Sunsk [sic] is Indian.”
When approached for comment, Tomlinson told The i Paper: “The British people are those with English, Scottish, Welsh, or Irish ancestry. You can no more become British by identifying as such, than a man can become a woman.”
Asked what he meant by “remigration”, he said: “Remigration refers to the reversal of mass unwanted, unassimilable migration. Therefore, every illegal migrant, incarcerated foreign person, asylum recipient, member of the Boriswave [migrants who legally came to the UK under Boris Johnson], and net tax burden should have their settlement revoked and returned home.”
Views will hit the party’s support
Some political commentators think that the increased exposure of Restore’s activists’ views will hit the party’s support.
Louis O’Geran of the More in Common think-tank said that despite Restore’s decent showing in the Makerfield and Greater Manchester mayoral by-elections, “awareness of Restore still remains pretty low, and people haven’t really got a hardened view of it yet”.
For example, last month More in Common conducted a poll in which it asked people to put UK parties on a scale from left-wing to right-wing. It found that Britons thought that Restore was no more right-wing than the Tories or Reform.
But O’Geran said that if the attitudes of activists like Downes’s received more attention, some “undecided floating voters” who might otherwise consider voting for Restore may be scared away.
“The more they find out about the kind of ethnonationalist leanings of many of its prominent members, I think that is when that group could be put off,” he said.
Farage has said similar himself. “I suspect many of those who say Restore in answer to a poll are perhaps not quite aware. They see Rupert, they see this farmer from Gloucestershire, and they think ‘he makes sense’, but those he’s got around him, I think they’d be pretty horrified.”
He has also said there are “one or two people in the orbit of the upper echelons of that party who, if I sat down and talked to, I think our members and our voters would be utterly shocked.”
While some people think Lowe would be wise to distance himself from individuals espousing ethnonationalist views, so far he has shown little inclination to do so.
The i Paper asked Lowe whether he agreed Badenoch is a “foreigner”, if he supported “remigration” and if he agreed that Sunak “is Indian”. The i Paper also asked whether he was happy for these views and ethnonationalist comments to be expressed by people working for Restore or associated with it.
The response from a Restore spokesman did not answer these specific questions. The spokesman said: “Restore Britain has outlined our immigration position and wider policy platform, repeatedly. The media continues to entirely ignore that, yet takes any opportunity to smear the Restore Britain name.
“We want a mature and fair conversation about the comprehensive policy propositions that we are putting forward to the British people, on deportations, the cost of living, energy and much more.
“That is what we are focusing on.”
Ferme and Pitt did not respond to The i Paper’s requests for comment.
Downes has been contacted for comment. On X, he has previously said that his campaigning for “demographic security and sovereignty for the native British people” has “caused the establishment media to turn its guns on me and Restore Britain because the objective of their ideology is to dispossess the British of their homeland.”
Hence then, the article about inside the hard right restore cabal plotting to stop farage was published today ( ) and is available on inews ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Inside the hard-right Restore cabal plotting to stop Farage )
Also on site :
- 36 Years Ago Today, Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Final Concert Ended in an All-Star Jam—Then a Helicopter Crash Changed Everything
- Chelsea vs Luton Town: Blues Target Strong EFL Cup Start
- 1975 Frank-N-Furter, Secret Weapon Built by Tim Curry From David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust DNA, Earned the Greatest Response Bowie Ever Gave