Archie Bland
In depth: ‘Nigel has a long track record of not being able to handle anyone else stealing his limelight’
Copied from – the Guardian Online
11 Mar 2025
It gives depth to all the thoughts I’ve been having about the likely outcome for Reform from this battle of egos being played out in the press. I’m not actually a Reform supporter at present; it’s too much of a one man band at present for my taste. I do however, agree with so very much of what that one man has to say and what he has said about the state of this country.
I do not like some of the company he keeps, nor do I like to hear him speak in glowing terms about certain world leaders, but there can be no denying the fact that Nigel Farage has shaken British politics to its foundations.
However, it now seems it will turn out to be more of a tremor than an earthquake and when the dust settles the only thing to have fallen will be the Reform Party.
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It’s quite hard to summarise the fight between Rupert Lowe (above) and Nigel Farage, but let’s give it a go. Lowe – the MP for Great Yarmouth who shot to prominence after Elon Musk’s thoroughly surprising endorsement of him as a replacement for Farage – gave an interview to the Daily Mail last week in which he warned that it was not clear whether Farage’s “messianic qualities” would distil into “sage leadership”, and said that he would not be standing for Reform again unless his leader got better at delegating.
Then Reform said it was investigating two complaints from female employees about bullying in Lowe’s offices, that he had threatened violence against the party chair, Zia Yusuf – and that the latter was with the police. This rolled on over the weekend, culminating in the KC appointed to investigate allegations against Lowe denying his claims that she told him she was shocked at the process, and Lowe threatening a libel suit against the party – saying that the bullying allegations were not about him personally.
Lowe’s proximity to this particular bin fire is not especially surprising to those of us who followed the fortunes of Southampton football club during his chairmanship, sad to say; still, it’s difficult to reach a definitive view on whether his interview was retaliation for the investigation, the investigation was retaliation for the interview, or a bit of both.
What’s perhaps more significant is what it suggests about the state of Reform. “It would be a massive embarrassment to lose one of your five MPs,” Giles Dilnot said. “People are entitled to ask how you would manage 120 MPs if you got that far. It is not unrecoverable – but it is much more than a little local difficulty.”
What is the fight really about?
As well as the allegations about Lowe’s conduct, which he denies, the disagreement here boils down to a question that faces any upstart party: how to professionalise. Reform says that Lowe’s alleged conduct suggests he is not a fit person to be an MP, and that the process he is facing is evidence that it is a serious party; on the other hand, as Eleni Courea writes in this useful analysis piece:
Lowe and his allies argue that his treatment proves his point: that Reform UK is entirely under Farage’s thumb, a protest movement directed by one man rather than the professional political party he promised to turn it into.
Dilnot spoke to Reform sources for two excellentpieces on the state of the party and the row over Lowe, and suggests that a central issue is the position of Yusuf. Part of his job is to try to build a proper base for the party to campaign from in future. Ben Habib, who left the party not long ago after a similarly interminable saga, told GB News: “Zia Yusuf has systematically been … displacing people and in the process rubbishing their reputation.”
Dilnot said: “In professionalising, they have to do away with the enthusiastic amateur, and try to put people who know what they’re doing in positions on the ground. Yusuf has put a lot of noses out of joint in trying to do that. But Nigel has supported him every time.”
That process is difficult in part because it may make the rank and file question whether they have enough of a say, Tim Bale said. “If you look at what motivates people to go out and be active, it tends to be people quite involved in the life and soul of the party at a local level. That has to come from them feeling they have some meaningful input into the party’s direction.”
Bale recently conducted research that suggestedReform members are more likely than other party members to post about the party online – but less likely to go out leafleting. “There is a tradeoff,” he said. “It has benefited Farage to be able to make quick decisions. But you need boots on the ground – especially in local elections, which are essential to creating a sense of momentum.”
Is Farage’s ego a problem?
It would be hard to deny that Farage has been the dominant force behind his movement’s success for the last 20 years – but there are those who think that to take the next step, Reform has to grow beyond him.
“Nigel has a long track record of not being able to handle anyone else becoming popular and stealing his limelight,” Dilnot said. “He does not like rivals, and he says that he knows he has to build a broader team, but it remains to be seen whether he will do it.” In his piece for ConservativeHome yesterday, Dilnot reported sources saying that Lowe’s growing profile had been the subject of several conversations at Reform HQ.
Of course, every party has its internal divisions. But while Reform has matured, there is little sense yet that its factions have much to do with policy positions – like the European Research Group and the One Nation group in the Tory party, for example – rather than personalities.
“They still have an extremely leadership-focused view of how the party should be run,” Bale said. “It’s very difficult for people to set out positions that differ strongly from Farage. Other parties are broader churches.”
Is there a policy dimension here?
Well, sort of. Lowe, perhaps mindful of Elon Musk’s view, has appeared willing to entertain the idea that Reform should court voters who might be sympathetic to the outright extremist Tommy Robinson. Lowe has said that Farage wants to “silence” his calls for mass deportations. He has also claimed not to know why Robinson was in prison – he should read First Edition – and said that although “not right for Reform”, he deserves“credit for the things that he’s done”.
But it’s not clear whether that view really has enough purchase within Reform’s membership to make it a viable wedge issue for Lowe. “Whatever you think about Farage, he has managed to detach people’s enthusiasm for his views from the extreme end of the spectrum,” Bale said. “It would be a pretty small minority within Reform who want to see them move towards Robinson.”
“Nigel is still wildly popular,” Dilnot said. “But the more nationalist element are pretty unhappy with him.” There is a group who like Lowe, too, even if it doesn’t tend to override their devotion to the leader: “Nigel’s biggest problem is the people who do like him, but also think Rupert’s great.”
So where does all this leave Reform?
There will certainly be those who say that some rats-in-a-sack style fighting within the party is unlikely to bother voters. And it’s true that the question of Lowe’s fate is unlikely to be on many people’s minds by the time of the next election.
But if the row doesn’t end quickly, and with the party publicly united behind their leader, it is likely to metastasise into a useful attack for the Tories and Labour – the idea that Farage is a captain with a very fine tricorn hat, but no ship.
The other big question may feel almost incidental – but it is likely to be the vital one in the long term. “There is a worry, which Rupert Lowe hinted at, that Nigel doesn’t have the appetite to do the detailed policy work,” Dilnot said. He pointed to a recent policy launch promising to reduce energy bills at the same time as legislating to put energy cables underground rather than on pylons, a vastly expensive undertaking,
“One of the major attacks that the Conservatives and Labour want to land is that this is policy written on the back of a fag packet outside the pub,” he added. “That isn’t entirely true – there are people within Reform who want to build a more serious agenda – but they have a long way to go to prove it.”
Roger Gambba-Jones 