Reform faces split as Farage hits back over ‘messianic’ criticism
Nigel Farage calls Rupert Lowe ‘utterly completely wrong’ after Reform MP criticised his leadership style
Reform UK is facing a split at the top after Nigel Farage called one of his most prominent MPs “utterly completely wrong” for calling him the “messianic” leader of a protest party.
Farage hit out at Rupert Lowe after the Great Yarmouth MP and former Southampton FC chair criticised his leadership publicly in an interview.
Lowe, who was touted as a replacement leader by Elon Musk earlier this year, had said Reform needed a “proper plan”, more policy and spokespeople. He also suggested he could leave the party unless it was centred less around Farage’s “messianic” leadership.
The MP’s criticism comes after internal Reform speculation about tensions with Farage, especially after Musk’s intervention.
Asked by the Daily Mail if Farage would make a good prime minister, Lowe said: “It’s too early to know whether Nigel will deliver the goods. He can only deliver if he surrounds himself with the right people.
“Nigel is a fiercely independent individual and is extremely good at what we have done so far. He has got messianic qualities. Will those messianic qualities distill into sage leadership? I don’t know.”
Farage responded to Lowe in an interview on TalkTV saying he was “utterly, completely wrong” about Reform being a protest party. He also pointed out that Lowe was already on the frontbench of the party, adding: “Perhaps he wants to be prime minister, half the House of Commons do.”
“We’re not a protest party and he’s on the frontbench. What is he talking about? With only five people, you can’t really have a shadow cabinet, can you? We’ve got a lot of development to do but we’re absolutely not a protest party,” he said.
Asked if Lowe had been told to wind his neck in, Farage said there was “no point telling him what to do or what not to do … the fact is, we are making huge strides”. Pressed on whether Lowe would be an MP at the next election, Farage said: “I hope so, he seems to be taking a tone that suggests he won’t accept us.”
During the interview, Lowe also suggested he could leave the Reform party if it does not change before the next election by structuring itself with less dependence on Farage.
“We have to change from being a protest party led by the Messiah into being a properly structured party with a frontbench, which we don’t have. We have to start behaving as if we are leading and not merely protesting.
“Nigel is a messianic figure who is at the core of everything, but he has to learn to delegate, as not everything can go through one person.
“So we have to start developing policy which is going to change the way we govern. I’m not going to be by Nigel’s side at the next election unless we have a proper plan to change the way we govern from top to bottom. We can’t raise the hopes of people who are so frustrated with the way we are governed and then flunk it.”
In the interview, he also suggested MPs should be paid about £250,000 but that the chamber should be halved in number, and referred to the BBC as a “cancer at the heart of Britain”.
A businessman and former chair of Southampton FC, Lowe said of himself: “I sit in parliament with my experience in farming, various risk-taking businesses, and so I speak with a plain tongue … I am a bit like the one-eyed man in the land of the blind. But, funnily enough, the one-eyed man is usually in charge in the end in the land of the blind.”
Musk, the world’s richest man had hinted at a possible £100m donation to Reform but later said Farage “doesn’t have what it takes” after a spat over the party’s decision to distance itself from the far-right leader Tommy Robinson. At the time, Musk said: “I have not met Rupert Lowe but his statements online that I have read make a lot of sense.”
Lowe has been more favourable towards Robinson and has a substantial grassroots following among Reform members, as well as very high levels of engagement on social media. He appeared to be the only one out of Farage’s five MPs not to be at the party’s fundraising event
Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said there was “internecine warfare at the top of Reform”, claiming that “their MPs are more concerned with their own egos, and advancing their personal ambitions, rather than standing up for the British people”.
“With one of Farage’s most senior MPs doubting his leadership abilities and admitting that Reform is a protest party with no plan, it is clear that Reform are not serious, and will always put self-interest above our national interest,” said Philp.
“The British public deserve solutions, not just empty slogans. Only the Conservatives, under Kemi Badenoch’s leadership, can be trusted to be a real opposition, and real alternative, to this dreadful Labour government.”
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