u/ijustwannanap

In an effort to become broader-minded towards politics I was reading about Restore and the big man himself, Rupert Lowe. I admittedly know little about him beyond he seemingly enjoys swearing, once managed a football club (?), and probably would not like people like me very much.

It stated on his Wikipedia page that he was formerly a member of the Brexit Party, which then became Reform UK. "Interesting!" I thought. "How come he started his own party if he was a member?" There's a picture of him looking pally-pally with Farage, under which it states:

> In the 2024 UK general election on 4 July, Lowe stood for the Great Yarmouth constituency, and won, gaining 35.3 per cent of the vote.

Not exactly a landslide result that inspires confidence to the point of starting a party, the Labour councillor got 31.5%.

> After his election, he compiled a list of schools in his constituency where he said that teachers were biased against Reform during the election campaign, saying he would be meeting with headteachers to discuss the allegations. He also pledged to donate his MP salary to a different local charity or worthy cause each month.

Unusual first part. Pretty nice second part.

> In January 2025, the American businessman Elon Musk, who had endorsed Reform UK, called on Nigel Farage to resign as leader, and then praised Lowe. Lowe thanked Musk, but reiterated his support for Farage. The dispute between Musk and Farage stemmed from Musk's endorsement of the imprisoned far-right activist Tommy Robinson, whom Farage has rejected; Lowe said Robinson should be acknowledged for "exposing these [child rape] gangs" but called him "not right for Reform".

Being endorsed by Musk is like a reverse Midas touch imo, but it's good to see Lowe sticking by his party leader/friend and not digging into random rivalries between, well, a billionaire and a crook. Anecdotally, Advance UK - backed by Robinson, but founded by ex-Reform MP Ben Habib - was considering a merger with Restore... until Habib went off at Lowe.

Here was where I started to get to the meat of the issue.

> On 6 March 2025, in an interview with the Daily Mail, Lowe criticised the governance of Reform UK as "a protest party led by the Messiah", suggesting he might leave the party if things did not change, and saying it was too early to tell whether Farage would make a good prime minister.

The bromance continues to crumble:

> Farage disputed Lowe's criticism of himself and Reform UK, describing his personal following as a good thing, and went on to suggest Lowe's remarks were driven by a desire to be prime minister himself.

> On 7 March 2025, it was announced that Lowe had been reported to the police by Reform UK after its chairman, the businessman Zia Yusuf, alleged Lowe made verbal threats against him three months and a month previously, in December 2024 and in February 2025 respectively, and that he was also under investigation by Reform UK for claims of bullying within his parliamentary office. Reform UK said that Lowe had also refused to cooperate with the investigation, while Lowe himself said that Reform UK's statement was published before an investigation had even begun. Lowe subsequently had the whip suspended by party whip Lee Anderson who said "to remove the whip was a deeply painful thing to do".

Unfortunate! To spare all 3 of you that read this from boring paragraphs, Lowe denied all allegations against him and also stated that "senior Reform officials" were attempting to claim he had dementia, that his removal was due to criticising Farage, that he was "frozen out" of meetings and policy discussions for pushing for internal party reform, and that basically Farage was behind it all and had knifed him in the back, Judas-style.

Three months later, Lowe founded Restore Britain, and registered it as a political party last month (he is the sole party member). Here we now are.

Weirdly, Restore (and Advance) seems to be a magnet for ex-Reform party members. I am sure having your party composed of members that jump ship at the first sign of their party potentially going under will prove no problem down the line. An unidentified ex-colleague of Lowe's also described him as "not a team player", which seems like a bad thing for someone who wants to lead a political party, and said that Restore is "a fever dream born of hurt feelings, not strategy."

However, it seems that a pundit believes that Lowe's whacking at the hands of Reform can fuel him into being prime minister:

> The first is that when Lowe transformed Restore Britain from a political values incubator into a registered political party, he was counselled by a group of young, white men, all of whom are under 30. Most of them have made names for themselves as commentators, some run their own YouTube channels. The briefest examinations will reveal what occupies their minds: revenge. Revenge for generational profligacy, race-based appointments, and the managed decline of their culture for the benefit of boomers or new arrivals who do not subscribe to their values. Collectively they boast a considerable following, and will invariably leverage Yarvin’s theory of sincerity to Lowe’s benefit within their critical constituency.

> The second is another observation by Yarvin. Lowe may have never possessed a desire to lead, but is motivated by a sense of duty. This is salient. For all intents and purposes, Reform’s savage attack would have terminated the prospects of even the most experienced politician, but Lowe emerged stronger and more determined.

> There was a time when the things that occupied Lowe’s mind during the worst of his character assassination, that tortured him into purpose and resolve and finally, duty, were the same things that made prime ministers. Many hope that time is set to return.

Most of the material I have looked at on Lowe paints him as someone who works best alone but became a party leader anyway, is surrounded by people who want revenge on the "other", is attracting various far-right supporters from seemingly all sides of the fence, and who started a party out of spite towards Farage. It seems like his overall motivation is to surpass Farage and rub it in his face - kind of like a "who's laughing now?!" deal - instead of actually leading the country. If his overall goal is to just push the Overton window and be petty and show up Farage, then I respect that. But he just seems to lack the personality and mindset of a country leader, in my opinion. I can't exactly envision him doing stuff like attending G20 or visiting a school.

Of course I could be blind and we end up with a Restore landslide in 2029. Only time will tell.

Earlier I was reading a satirical article on Vice entitled "69 Ways for Idiot Millennials to Actually Buy a House" (https://www.vice.com/en/article/how-to-buy-a-house/) and one of the points mentioned squatting. It stated:

> According to “the law”, squatting in residential buildings is illegal and “can lead to 6 months in prison”, a “£5,000 fine” or “both”. Squatting empty non-residential buildings, however, is more of a legal grey area.

I went to look this up and found out that in 2012 squatting was criminalised in the UK. As the quote says, it's illegal to squat in a residential building; this means that you can't walk into someone's house, even if you know them, and live there (or intend to live there) without permission. So for example, I can't go into my friend's house uninvited and announce I'm now living there and refusing to leave.

Squatting in a *non-residential* property, such as an empty plot of land, a hospital, a prison, an office, a hotel/B&B, a shop etc is *not* illegal unless you cause damage in or around the property, refuse to leave when told to by a court, steal, fly-tip, use gas/electric without permission, or are overly noisy.

Some historical backstory: During the housing crisis of the 60s and 70s, there were 30,000 squatters in London alone in 1979 (https://ihrhistorylab.wordpress.com/2021/02/03/the-politics-organisation-and-representation-of-squatting-1968-79-an-investigation-into-the-causes-of-the-squatting-movements-failure/ and https://www.huckmag.com/article/the-london-squatters-who-resisted-evictions-in-the-70s). Squatting was impacted by Margaret Thatcher's "right to buy" policy:

> In 1986, the expanded "right to buy" provisions of the Housing Act 1985 came into effect. Together with cuts in central government funding, these discouraged councils from acquiring private tenements on the scale that had given squatters their opportunity in Bonnington Square and Pullens. Local authorities had little financial incentive to purchase, refurbish or build homes, when faced with an obligation to sell them on to their tenants at a discount. Along with the overall stock of social housing, the number of local authority dwellings held vacant for repair, demolition or redevelopment – properties in which squatters might hope for some measure of tolerance – declined: in England, from 81,177 in 1986 to 33,246 in 1996. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squatting\_in\_England\_and\_Wales)

Out of interest I looked up homelessness statistics for the UK. A chart from 2025 (https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10173/) showed that rough sleeping increased after 2012 and then spiked dramatically around 2015. It dropped during COVID (other tables show that various homelessness initiatives were launched from 2017 to 2020 which probably helped with the drop) and then continued to spike back up to 2017 levels. I'm not sure why it spiked so much around then (I was 15 and not paying attention to politics - perhaps someone here can enlighten me) but anyone in the UK with eyes can see that there are more homeless people on the streets than ever before.

Also, this is anecdotal but I think it's also impacted the arts scene, especially in London. I'm an art history student and there are a ton of artists who talk about squatting; most of the Young British Artists contingent in the 1990s squatted for a while at some point (https://elephant.art/turning-back-the-clock-to-london-as-a-squatters-haven-12022021/) because they simply didn't have the money for rent or to buy a house.

EDIT: Guys I'm not saying we should bring back squatting or anything. I'm asking if it contributed to the massive amount of rough sleepers we now see.