The uneasy courtship between Ben Habib’s Advance UK and Rupert Lowe’s newly-launched Restore Britain party has collapsed into open hostility, with Habib issuing an extraordinary nine‑minute denunciation of Lowe’s leadership, structure and political direction.
The intervention confirms Searchlight’s earlier reporting on the factional tensions simmering beneath the right‑populist realignment, and suggest that the attempted consolidation of post‑Reform forces is already fracturing.
Offered a merger
Habib opened his statement by noting that it had been “nine days since Rupert Lowe declared he was going to convert Restore Britain from a movement to a political party” and eight days since he (Habib) publicly offered Lowe a merger.
“I’ve had no response,” he said, adding that Lowe’s only public comment was to suggest that Habib and Advance UK members were “free to join Restore Britain”.
What followed was a forensic, and unusually personal, attack on Lowe’s operation. Habib claimed that Restore Britain has “no draft constitution”, “no clarity” on leadership accountability, policymaking processes, or party infrastructure.
He contrasted this with Advance UK’s published constitutional documents, which he said clearly set out its philosophy and internal governance.
The attack is relentless:
But here’s the issue, Rupert: I don’t know what Restore Britain is. I’ve had a look at your website, but there’s no draft constitution there.
Nothing setting out how the leadership is appointed, how the leadership is held to account, how policies are made, how people to your policymaking committees are appointed, how you’re going to set up your national network, how people are going to be recruited into the party.
None of this is clear on your website.
There’s no draft constitutional document. The only document about which I’m aware are the Articles of Association of your company, what you’ve got on Companies House, and that shows a company limited by one share, a private limited company, limited by one share which you own, Rupert.
You are the owner and dictator of Restore Britain.
And I do also know – and people need to know – that you don’t believe in a democratic political party.
Habib then cited private conversations and public comments from Restore Britain spokespeople. One, he recalled, had even referred to Lowe as “Caesar”.
Habib’s comparison with Reform – “Reform was Farage. Farage was Reform” – was a pointed reminder of the personality‑driven model he believes Lowe is replicating.
Extreme racists
Habib also raised concerns about what he described as a “tilt towards ethno‑national sort of sound bites” from some Restore Britain supporters.
While stressing he was not accusing Lowe personally of prejudice, he warned that ethno-nats “will end up breaking the United Kingdom” and “deliver for the EU what it’s been so desperate to do”.
We pointed out last week that amongst Lowe’s earliest and most vociferous supporters were a faction of ‘ethno-nationalists’ – fascists and extreme racists who want to deport any and all non-whites – who had only last year broken away from the Homeland Party because it was too soft on race and immigration.
They include Steve Laws, Sam Wilkes (the ‘Zoomer Historian’) and Callum Barker, the Epping migrant hotel activist.
Target-rich environment
Lowe needs to make an early decision about whether he will allow them to provide a target-rich environment for his opponents, or get rid of them, something made rather more difficult by his criticism of Farage and Reform for vetting members.
Lowe has just appointed, as Restore’s spokeswoman on women and girls’ safety, Orla Minihane, a former Reform councillor from Essex, also prominent in the Epping hotel protests and the ‘Pink Ladies’ and someone quite relaxed about sharing a platform with fascists like Callum Barker.
She was warmly welcomed by Restore’s nazi faction:
What Lowe may not yet realise is that curtesy of the ethno-nats there is also a poisonous internal debate waiting for him: he is passionately pro-Israel whilst they are virulently anti-Jewish.
That tension will not be long in working its way out, especially if he goes on the public record again in strong support of Israel as he has in the past.
The Habib-Lowe rift is upsetting many on the right who assumed a merger would be plan sailing. Tommy Robinson, who joined Advance and publicly pledged support for Habib, is now singing Restore’s praises and calling for a merger.
He has also reportedly invited Lowe to be the star speaker at his May ‘Unite the Kingdom’ fund raiser in London.
Virulently opposed
He is now calling on Lowe and Habib to “be adults, lads, Rupert, Ben, sit around the table… for the greater good of the country…”
However, Robinson’s right hand man Richard Inman is virulently opposed to Lowe, accusing him of treason and treachery, denouncing him for harbouring ethno nat extreme racists, and urging Habib not to merge.
On the other hand, Rikki Doolan, another Robinson luminary, has pledged support to Lowe, declaring he will follow him into “the trenches, the swamp, and the belly of the beast” but also calling for merger talks over “a cup of tea” and slagging off the Restore ethno nats:
Which way Robinson himself will jump if the rift is not healed remains to be seen, but if there is one thing Habib cannot count upon, it’s any shred of loyalty from Robinson. For him, it’s all in the grift.
Habib’s most recent statement ended with a pompous reaffirmation of his leadership of Advance UK. “I will not bend. I will not give in. I will stand for this country until my last breath is given,” he declared, urging Lowe to “do the right thing” and adopt “serious principle politics”.
For a movement that has spent months promising unity on the populist right, the rupture is significant.
As we predicted, instead of consolidation a familiar pattern is emerging, and it has little to do with ideology: it comes down to competing egos, competing brands, and competing claims to be the authentic voice of the disaffected far right.
