Well, well, well. It transpires that Independent MP Rupert Lowe – formerly of Reform UK – has now been cleared by parliament’s standards commissioner after he was probed over funds for his independent ‘Rape Gang Inquiry’. Lowe was investigated after allegedly failing to register hundreds of thousands of pounds in donations for his project, with more than £600,000 raised by a Crowdfunder started by the Greater Yarmouth MP in March.
The Commissioner noted:
I opened a formal inquiry on 10 July 2025. My inquiry sought to confirm whether these donations qualified as registrable interests and whether Lowe had failed to register them within the 28-day window set by the House. During the inquiry, Lowe provided evidence that a number of donations made to the crowdfunder did cross the threshold for registration but that they were not accepted until 23 June 2025. As such, the 28-day window set by the House for the registration of those interests has not passed and no breach of the rules has occurred.
Lowe started the fundraiser to raise money to support a national inquiry into Britain’s grooming gangs scandal, some months before Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government rowed back on its decision not to start a national probe. Labour’s U-turn was prompted by Baroness Casey’s audit of group-based child exploitation – which found ‘clear evidence of overrepresentation amongst suspects of Asian and Pakistani heritage men’. Lowe’s Rape Gang Inquiry group has its own board and has claimed to have sent ‘hundreds of FOI requests to every local council, police force, NHS trust and more’ to ‘uncover’ information relating to grooming gangs. But despite the Independent MP managing to raise a significant sum for his inquiry mission, he was probed for not having declared any of the money on his MPs’ register.
The Crowdfunder page notes that donors who give more than the parliamentary limit – sums over £1,500 from a single source or more than £300 in earnings or gifts – will have their names published in the Commons register. While most of the money came in smaller sums, some donations did top the £1,500 limit. The Rape Gang Inquiry has insisted that there is still time left to register the money, showing the Beeb bank statements that were received on 23 June – which would need to be declared by 21 July. In a statement, the group said:
The first donations were drawn from our Crowdfunder and arrived in the Rape Gang Inquiry bank account on June 23rd – Rupert had been funding the inquiry until then. All appropriate checks have been made for Rupert’s parliamentary declaration. He has 28 days from the money arriving in the account, which was on June 23rd, until the submission has to be complete – although this has almost entirely been finished already. Once the inquiry is complete, spending will be published in the interests of full transparency.
It’s not the first time Lowe has found himself under scrutiny. Earlier this year, he was suspended by Reform over allegations he had threatened then-chairman Zia Yusuf. Despite the claims, the Crown Prosecution Service decided in May not to press charges and the Greater Yarmouth MP fumed that he had been the victim of a ‘political assassination attempt’. Once again the ex-Reform man has been cleared…
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