Rupert Lowe says Reform forcing him out because he poses threat to Farage

Rupert Lowe has accused Reform UK of suspending him for being a “tall poppy” who threatened to overshadow Nigel Farage in the latest escalation of the bitter row that is tearing the party apart.

Lowe said it was highly unlikely he would be ever allowed to return to the party, which he accused of trying to “blacken” his reputation.

In a YouTube interview with the rightwing commentator Dan Wootton, Lowe left the door open to joining the Conservatives or Ukip but said he had not taken any decisions about his future.

He suggested he was being forced out of Reform because he posed a threat to Farage, saying that “as in the past, a poppy that stood up too tall has been chopped down”.

“You’ve got to look at the pattern of relationships with Nigel throughout his career … Almost anybody who is in his view either threatening him or is capable enough to take over from him, he tends to fall out with them.”

Lowe said he owed a “huge debt to Elon Musk because without my X account which gives me a voice this may well have ended very differently”.

He also suggested that the Reform UK chairman, Zia Yusuf, who is Muslim, may have not liked the way he talked about “mass deportations” or “Pakistani rape gangs”.

“Is it because Nigel thought I was getting too powerful? Is it because Zia Yusuf thought I was talking too much about deportation or mass deportation, or the Pakistani rape gangs? I simply don’t know,” he said.

The Great Yarmouth MP, who has tacked to the right of Farage on migration, revealed that the party had asked him to excise a reference to “mass deportations” he planned to make at a rally in Kemi Badenoch’s North West Essex constituency.

The all-out war inside Reform UK erupted on Friday when Lowe was suspended from the whip over bullying complaints made by two female staff members and separate allegations that he had threatened Yusuf with violence.

Lowe has strongly denied the claims, saying the bullying complaints did not relate to him personally and involved staff members who themselves faced disciplinary proceedings. He has also denied threatening Yusuf with violence and questioned why a police complaint was only made three months after the alleged incident. The Metropolitan police have said they are assessing an allegation of ”‘verbal threats”.

Lowe called on the party to retract and apologise to him on Monday after pointing to a social media post by the former Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen, who said that one of the women alleged to have made claims of bullying was his former parliamentary aide.

Bridgen wrote on X: “She has told me that her original complaint had nothing to do with Rupert personally and was related to the actions of another member of his staff. I have her permission to post this tweet.”

The Reform UK chief whip, Lee Anderson, responded by saying that a KC appointed by the party to investigate the allegations “has already publicly rebuked Mr Lowe for making false claims”.

The row has also laid bare the tensions within Reform’s grassroots membership over the direction of the party. Sources close to Lowe said that as many as 7,000 members had resigned over the weekend in protest at his treatment, though the party denies this.

Opponents of Farage’s leadership are urging Lowe to lead a rival party on the hard right. “We had been having bets about when Rupert would be ousted,” said Alex Stephenson, one of 10 councillors who split from Reform in Amber Valley in January and who are working with other groups.

“It was surprising that he lasted so long but hopefully now we can continue building up a new organisation. Rupert’s very popular with the Reform grassroots and it’s clear why, he tells it as it is.”

Party members have been trading barbs on Facebook groups, with a moderator on the Reform UK Clacton group – which includes members in Farage’s own constituency - complaining of Yusuf being subjected to “veiled and overt religious and racial discrimination” in recent days.