Re-form over function: The Farage-Lowe row, part one

In the past few weeks, I, and the other 13% of the population who know who Rupert Lowe is, have been shocked by the public collapse of relationship between the famously affable Nigel Farage and, Lowe, his oldest MP.

How did this all start, I hear you ask. Earlier this month, Rupert Lowe, one of the five Reform UK MPs in parliament, accused Farage of acting like a ‘messianic figure’.

In an interview with the Daily Mail, he offered Farage some advice on running countries and winning elections (to be fair, having run for parliament only three times, he has a success rate more than double that of Mr Farage). Lowe also suggested that Farage “can only deliver if he surrounds himself with the right people”. We cannot be certain that this was followed by a ‘cough – me – cough’, but it seems a legitimate assumption.

Lowe also suggested that Reform should probably put together a frontbench, seemingly forgetting the existing frontbench, which currently includes Rupert Lowe himself

Whilst Lowe didn’t directly suggest that Farage lacked leadership skills, he did question them, saying: “Will those messianic qualities distil into sage leadership? I don’t know.” Though, notably, he never directly undermined Farage; all he did was give some useful pointers. Lowe also suggested that Reform should probably put together a frontbench, seemingly forgetting the existing frontbench, which currently includes Rupert Lowe himself as Business and Agriculture Spokesman. And to be fair to Farage, it isn’t easy to form a frontbench out of five MPs.

Farage’s response was shocking, however, especially for someone with such a hard-earned reputation for peace-making and bridge-building. Whilst he may have fallen out with every MP his party has ever had, his ex-deputy, UKIP’s old chairman, several MEPs, and both his ex-wives, surely, he’d receive Lowe’s criticism with a charming smile and a promise to ‘take the feedback on board’.

Instead, we saw a shocking turn: gone was the affable Nigel of GB News, and instead, ‘Mr Farage’, hardened by years of not listening to European politicians in the European Parliament, took over. Farage struck back at Lowe in a piece for the Telegraph titled “Reform has acted responsibly over Rupert Lowe”. I, for one, am glad to learn that he thinks he has acted responsibly.

In a staggering coincidence, the day after Lowe’s interview with the Mail was also the day that Reform UK decided to report Rupert Lowe to the police over complaints of bullying

Most momentous of all, Rupert Lowe was suspended by Chief Whip Lee Anderson. This means Lowe no longer sits as a Reform MP and that Anderson’s chief responsibility now lies in ensuring the party’s one backbench MP, James McMurdoch, behaves himself and doesn’t kick his girlfriend again.

In a staggering coincidence, the day after Lowe’s interview with the Mail was also the day that Reform UK decided to report Rupert Lowe to the police over complaints of bullying in his office. There were also accusations that during an explosive meeting between Lowe and Zia Yusuf, Reform’s Chairman, Lowe had made physical threats to Yusef, which left the latter so shaken and upset that Farage was left with no choice but to report Lowe to the police three months later.

For some reason, Lowe saw the ethics investigation into him as related to his gentle feedback of Farage. In a statement on X, he suggested that it was but a “malicious witch hunt”, and Sky ran a story suggesting that Lowe was consulting libel lawyers. Lowe pushed back against the claims and released a letter from his staff in which they stated ‘Rupert is the closest thing we have to perfection here on earth. He is nice to us and never hits us. He must be cherished and protected at all costs. And he definitely wasn’t involved in the writing of this letter’ or words to that effect.

The war of words continued—public statement after public statement was released. The messages felt like something between a playground dispute and a divorce. Featuring classic lines such as ‘our communication isn’t working’ and ‘I have been frozen out of decision-making processes’, as well as the less common: ‘You don’t care about grooming gangs’ and ‘You have dementia’.

Lowe has a broad coalition of support behind him – a motley crew of Dan Wotton, Ben Habib, and John Sopel. This is unlikely to matter, however, and Mr Lowe will likely join the ranks of many perpetually bitter right-wingers who have found themselves pushed off the Farage bandwagon: doomed to spend the rest of their lives confined to occasional GB News appearances and as guests on fringe podcasts. If Lowe is particularly lucky, he might get a Telegraph column every now and again. In short, his life will look much like it does currently, perhaps just without a parliamentary office.

Lowe is displaying signs of early-onset ‘backbencher complex’. This is a devastating condition that affects members of parliament: symptoms include criticism of party leaders, scheming, and visions of grandeur

There are many theories as to how this dispute first emerged. An article in the Spectator suggested that the personal dispute with Farage is down to Lowe’s old-money upbringing compared to the more ‘nouveau riche’ Farage. These accusations are unlikely to be helped by the fact Lowe allegedly refers to his parliamentary office as ‘the servant’s quarters’.

Psychiatrists I have consulted have also suggested Lowe is displaying signs of early-onset ‘backbencher complex’. This is a devastating condition that affects members of parliament: symptoms include criticism of party leaders, scheming, and visions of grandeur. Tweets of those afflicted with this condition often include phrases such as ‘the country deserves better’, ‘there are questions to be answered’ or ‘I refuse to make apologies for my principled stance on etc’. Sufferers also have a habit of making what they believe to be Churchillian speeches to an empty Commons chamber or writing strongly worded letters to ‘People’ about ‘Things’. Despite being an MP for less than a year, Lowe has already caught a very nasty case. Our thoughts are with his family at this difficult time.

Perhaps, however, this was all an inevitable war of egos. Lowe has quietly been building his own band of supporters on X – mainly full of people who think that Reform is too soft on foreigners. His already healthy ego was then further inflated when Elon Musk, now running Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, fell out with Farage and suggested on X that Lowe’s “statements online make a lot of sense”. It has since emerged that this was, in fact, a compliment from Mr Musk.

Ultimately, when two men with heads so inflated they need double doors to enter rooms at the same time try to coexist peacefully, things are unlikely to go well. It was only a matter of time before the elephant in the room came home to roost.