Nigel's Nasty Side

 

I'm sure a lot of you will be responding to this article with: "Told you so, Ben!" Reform UK have suffered a catastrophic split following a comment one of their MP's made in the press. Rupert Lowe, the Commons member for Great Yarmouth, did an interview with The Daily Telegraph suggesting Reform could be reformed. He suggested it should not be so centred on Nigel Farage himself as a personality and structure itself more like a traditional political party. The very next day the police were called and Lowe was accused of bullying; or to be precise somebody accused somebody in his office of bullying. Lowe was immediately suspended from the party and had the whip removed. He has returned to Parliament as an independent, reducing Reform's MP tally to four. This has deeply upset Reform's membership and supporters, for whom Lowe is very popular. He has a reputation for being gentle and agreeable man; and he has definitely won the heart of his constituents. Nobody seems to believe these allegations; and what's more, Andrew Bridgen has been told by one of the accusers that Lowe himself is not the alleged culprit. The complaint was made three months ago and so seems to have been picked up by Farage and his confidants, people like Richard Tice and Zia Yusuf, in an opportunistic way. They've even suggested Lowe is coming down with dementia. Source: https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/uk/reform-uk-investigating-rupert-lowe-after-complaints-of-serious-bullying/.

This unhappy development has brought to light something of an open secret, that Nigel Farage is essentially a careerist. He is motivated by personal gain and power, not principle. He projects false sentiments to lure people into voting for him; not a rare flaw in politicians, let's face it. Despite the fact I have made approving noises about Nigel at times in the past, I have had my own concerns for a number of years; and the background link below records them. He had trodden on quite a few people's hands while scaling the rungs of the political ladder; most recently the original prospective parliamentary candidate for Clacton, whose name I cannot even remember and had to look up: Anthony Mack. There are many other examples. The pattern emerging is that Nigel regularly turns against people, not for their political opposition, but for their popularity within the party and electorate; and therefore the possibility that they might rival him personally. From what I've seen of social media, Rupert Lowe has effectively resigned from Reform UK. I suspect he will not go back even if they ask him. He made the following Tweet: https://x.com/RupertLowe10/status/1899446243488563317. I'm reminded of the line from the Gladiator movie: "But you have not yet been corrupted by Rome's politics!" Perhaps this is a stab too far for Nigel, one he will regret. What he has done is extremely unpopular and his supporters may well now turn against him, even those previously most loyal. Also Ben Habib has reached out to Lowe, another ex-Reformer. Habib was rejected by Reform for recommending mass deportation; something Nigel is constantly opposed to, despite the fact it would be an open goal for gaining enormous public popularity. (Why will Nigel not kick the ball? That's a big subject which deserves its own article.) Elon Musk, in his usual flamboyant style, has offered to fund a new political party for Rupert and Ben; although I'm not sure how that works legally considering Musk is not British. I do hope that plan goes ahead because the alternative would probably be Ben and Rupert collapsing seamlessly into the cesspit of the Tories. If it works then there will be yet another populist radical right party and Reform will go the same way as UKIP, another skeleton stripped bare by Nigel Farage's ambition. At least there's no rush. It's both bad and good news that there will be plenty of time before the next general election.
See here for background: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2019/10/brexit-portal.html.