Rupert Lowe has five extreme and bizarre demands for working with Nigel Farage

Rupert Lowe – the leader of the extreme right wing party Restore – has released a video calling for collaboration between his party and Reform UK.

Lowe was elected to the House of Commons under the Reform banner but was suspended from the party after allegations of bullying within his parliamentary office and that he made verbal threats to the Reform chair Zia Yusuf, allegations which he denies.

Following his departure from Reform, Lowe founded Restore. The party is even further to the right that Reform, with Lowe having argued that Farage’s party is insufficiently tough on migration.

In recent months, Restore has begun to poll reasonably well in by-elections, picking up 8.7 per cent in the Greater Manchester mayoral election and 6.8 per cent in the Makerfield parliamentary by-election.

Results like this are threatening Reform’s ascendancy, and there have been concerns on the right of British politics that Restore could cost Reform seats at the next general election by splitting the right-wing vote.

Clearly that prospect is worrying Lowe, who used his new social media video to call for Farage to put “personalities and our past disagreements aside for the good of the country”.

Elsewhere, he said: “I truly believe there could be sufficient common ground for our two movements to cooperate collectively, destroy the looming left wing alliance that will finish off what hope remains for this country.”

But the video wasn’t an open offer. Instead, he set out five demands on Farage and Reform in order for Restore to consider working with them.

What Lowe describes as the “five fundamental principles” for co-operation range from predictable far-right talking points to the bizarre.

First, Lowe said that “ending mass immigration is not enough”, and called for Reform to implement Restore Britian’s full policy on deportations. In the video, he said “every illegal migrant must be deported and yes, that must include women and children”.

He then went on to say “legal immigration has called even more damage” and argued that any migrant who lives in social housing or can’t speak English should also be deported. Concluding that section of he demands, he said “millions must go”.

So far, so far-right.

Lowe’s second demand is in a similar vein. In the video, Lowe said “it is predicted that white Britains will become a minority by 2063. Nothing demonstrates the demographic vandalism of mass immigration more than that.”

Lowe’s solution for that? Reversing the “Islamification” of Britain and stopping the influence of Islam on “our Christian way of life”. And so Lowe argued that for Restore to work with Reform, Farage has to commit to banning Halal and Kosher meat, ‘mass dominating public Islamic prayer’ and so on and so on. Who would have guessed that a party on the far right of British politics would make banning Muslims from doing things a central plank of their policy?

Next up, Lowe moves away from the typical demonstration of Muslims and migrants. His third demand has a retro right-wing flavour.

Lowe said that for Restore to work with Reform, he’d need a commitment to hold a referendum on restoring the death penalty. He also (predictably) said he would campaign to reintroduce the death penalty in that referendum.

Bringing back the death penalty would make Britain one of just three countries in Europe to allow capital punishment. The other two? Our old friends Russia and Belarus.

Lowe’s penultimate demand is a reminder that along with their extreme positions on migration and the like, the hard right are just as extreme on economic policy.

He argues for a ramping up of austerity in order to deliver “a self-sufficient Britain”. “Enormous cuts must be made”, Lowe said. What’s the one area of spending Lowe demands Reform commit to cutting? You guessed it – welfare.

Lowe’s final demand steers away from policy and instead delves into personnel. He said that “former Conservative ministers who failed our country and our people in so many apalling ways must not be part of any future cabinet.”

While Lowe’s party has been picking up quite a few votes as of late, if he thinks he’s going to be forming a cabinet any time soon (with our without Farage), he might be getting a little ahead of himself.

Either way, this demand is the most bizarre of them all. Given that Farage’s party kicked Lowe out and welcomed former Tory ministers Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman into their fold, it seems just a tad unlikely that Reform will be up for agreeing to this one.

Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward