Rupert Lowe appeared to lash out last night as he faced a grilling over accusations of hypocrisy and over the behaviour of his activists in Makerfield.

The Restore Britain leader was challenged over a row in which he was accused of changing his mind on the ability of rival right-wing parties to 'split the vote' at elections.

Throughout the by-election campaign, Mr Lowe repeatedly rejected arguments that he risked taking away Reform UK's votes and allowing Mr Burnham to sneak through the middle.

But this week it was revealed that Mr Lowe previously made that same argument himself, against the Tories, when trying to win his Great Yarmouth seat at the last election.

Despite issuing the warning to Tory supporters on X two years ago, Mr Lowe appeared unaware he had ever made the argument, asking the Mail: 'Why would I say [the Tories] were going to split the vote?'

He blasted: 'Palpable rubbish! Know what you're talking about - that's palpable rubbish!'

The tweet in which Mr Lowe warned of splitting the vote remains public on his X profile.

The Restore leader was also forced to defend the behaviour of his party's activists during the crunch Makerfield race.

Yesterday, Reform UK accused Restore of a 'dirty tricks' campaign after a van bearing the words 'Muslims for Reform' was seen driving around the seat and trailing the Reform battle bus.

Mr Lowe posted an image of the bus, before deleting it, while his supporters gleefully amplified it on social media.

Reform also called the police on his activists earlier in the campaign, accusing them of harassing and intimidating their staff.

And yesterday Labour sources accused Restore activists of 'intimidation', alleging that some of their volunteers had been filmed on Meta glasses.

Mr Lowe insisted neither he nor Restore had anything to do with the controversial van stunt, adding: 'That was nothing to do with us. We deleted the picture of it as soon as it started to cause offence, because it was nothing to do with us.'

'We have behaved impeccably, and I refute everything you say on that.'

Speaking to the Mail ahead of the 3 am by-election result, the right-wing leader said he would be prepared to congratulate Andy Burnham should he win.

He argued: 'Reform don't own any votes, nor does anybody in a democratic election. You say what you're going to do, and you let people choose whether they want to vote for you.

'Nobody owns the votes, and if Andy Burnham wins tonight credit to him.'

Restore Britain ended up with 7% of the vote, short of the 10% Mr Lowe said would qualify as the 'news of the night'.