Can these Farage rivals’ start-ups hurt Reform?

You wait ages for a right-wing movement to come along – and then two do so at once. Former MEPs Ben Habib and Rupert Lowe both launched rival outlets yesterday. Habib now leads ‘Advance UK’, a political party whose first aim is to reach 30,000 members. Meanwhile, Lowe has started ‘Restore Britain’, a ‘bottom-up movement’ which welcomes members from all parties. It aims to start legal challenges, fund investigative journalists and champion whistleblowers.

The two movements share several key features. The first is a championing of direct democracy, with both Advance and Restore urging members to join and shape their direction. The second is a focus on argument, ideology and principles, rather than the nuts-and-bolts work of door knocking and campaigning in the mould of traditional political parties and pressure groups. Of the two, Lowe’s is the more intriguing. He is championing the ‘Great Repeal Act’ – a popular idea on the British right, to undo much of New Labour’s constitutional settlement. Habib’s 12-minute launch video consists mainly of him talking to the camera about internal party reform. Unlike Habib, Lowe is an MP and thus able to enjoy the use of written questions in the House, airtime in the chamber and parliamentary privilege when discussing contentious matters.

Yet the challenge facing both men is evident on day one. It is extraordinarily difficult to establish a new political party in the UK. For Reform, it took four years and hundreds of thousands of pounds just to get to the point last July where they won five seats. Organisation is key to success in British politics. The fact that both men launched on the same day is not a promising sign. Neither man did any pre-briefing; there was no big press conference to impress the Westminster press pack. As a result, neither launch garnered so much as a mention in today’s Daily Mail or Telegraph – two papers which share many of Lowe and Habib’s own views. Both men have big followings on X but even in a social media age, they will likely struggle to get cut-through.

The striking thing is that both men have decided to pursue separate ventures, rather than pooling resources and working together. Both are ex-Reformers who came off worst in a fight with Nigel Farage. They are each, understandably, bruised by that experience, which continues to shape their respective politics and their causes. Lowe and Habib clearly hope to hurt Reform by claiming back the intellectual and political leadership of the right. But the fact that they, so far, have been unable to work together will be held up as proof by Farage as one reason why they will never supplant him.