It’s been a week of rudeness, rows and revelations in the Makerfield byelection. Not between Andy Burnham and his challengers for the seat – but between Reform UK and its even more rightwing rival, Restore Britain.
Here are the key moments in a week in which the populist right turned on each other.
The leader of Restore Britain, Rupert Lowe, a former Reform UK MP who was ejected from the party in the wake of bullying allegations, released canvasing returns from Makerfield claiming to show 24.6% support for Restore’s candidate, Rebecca Shepherd, on a sample size of 1,010. Later, a Survation poll of 369 people showed Restore on 7%, Reform on 40% and Labour’s Andy Burnham on 43%. Nigel Farage appeared rattled, seizing on the Survation poll and claiming that Reform’s candidate, Robert Kenyon, “is the only candidate who can stop Andy Burnham. This is a two-horse race – nobody else comes close.”
Elon Musk appeared to endorse Restore for the Makerfield byelection by reposting a tweet from Lowe on his X platform, adding: “Restore Britain.” It led to Lowe’s complaint about “dishonest polling” being viewed more than 32m times.
A day later, Musk shared another post in which Lowe lashed out at Farage, with the caption: “Only Restore Britain can save Britain.”
In response to another apparent Musk endorsement, Lowe took a swipe at Reform’s justice spokesperson, Robert Jenrick, with a reference to his record in the Conservative government: “Restore Britain will deport the thousands and thousands of third world rapists, sex pests and scumbags that Reform’s Robert Jenrick imported as immigration minister.”
Farage said Burnham would be delighted with Musk’s intervention. “Elon Musk has decided he will try to split the right of British politics as best he can. This is supporting a party that’s one man with a social media account.”
The Reform MP Danny Kruger struggled to defend deleted social media posts by Kenyon in which he endorsed lewd misogynist comments about the broadcaster Carol Vorderman. Kruger told the BBC that Kenyon’s comments were “inappropriate” but argued they were “private conversations” because Kenyon was not a public figure at the time. Vorderman demanded an apology from Kenyon.
Later, Matt Goodwin, Reform’s unsuccessful candidate in the recent Gorton and Denton byelection, was disparaging about Restore’s candidate in Makerfield. He reposted an interview with Shepherd asking: “Is this what saving Britain looks like? No.”
Lowe lashed back at Goodwin with reference to Kenyon’s comments about Vorderman, adding: “A healthy mind, that is not.”
Later still, Jenrick leaked messages that he claimed had been sent to him in February by Orla Minihane, Restore’s spokesperson for the safety of women and girls. They appeared to show that she had asked for his help on becoming an MP and praised a speech he had made.
In a video, Minihane accused Jenrick of playing “dirty politics”. This prompted Isabel Oakeshott, the journalist and fiancee of Reform’s deputy leader, Richard Tice, to taunt Minihane. She said: “Hey Orla, did you pass Reform vetting? Just asking.” Minihane then accused Oakeshott of being “pathetic”.
At 5.37am, Tice said a column describing Lowe as “sick making” was “superb”.
Meanwhile, the Times revealed social media posts attributed to Kenyon that suggested he did not support Brexit. “So anyone who thinks I love Trump, voted Brexit, read the Daily Mail, live in the 1950s, a Tory and 103 is wrong. I’m none of the above,” he wrote in March 2019. In another post, Kenyon said he supported the free movement of people as long as it involved Europeans. Reform insisted Kenyon did vote for Brexit.
At 8.12am, the Reform MP Sarah Pochin let slip just how much Restore seemed to have got inside the heads of senior figures in the party. In an interview with Talk, she said the Makerfield byelection was a two-horse race between Labour and Restore. She hurriedly corrected the mistake. “I’ll be sacked for saying that! Reform and Labour,” she said.
Apparently not content with a party-on-party spat, just after 11am an internal Reform squabble broke out. Its home affairs spokesperson, Zia Yusuf, very publicly rebuked Jenrick for equivocating in a Sky News interview about whether Reform would deport foreign nationals who live in social housing. Reposting a clip of Jenrick’s answer, Yusuf said: “Robert’s answer is not Reform policy. As the person responsible for our deportation plan, I want ensure people know where we stand: if a foreign national lives in social housing at taxpayer expense, they automatically fail our economic test and will be deported.”
By the afternoon, it was back to the ongoing Reform-Restore ding dong. Kenyon accused Lowe of lying about his stance on immigration. “Someone born with a silver spoon in their mouth is trying to lie about the only working-class local man in the race,” he posted.
Social media posts attributed to Kenyon, revealed by the Telegraph, said Russia was “within their rights” to invade Crimea in 2014. In an online forum, he also appeared to compare Russia’s invasion to Britain’s intervention in the Falklands. In another forum, posts attributed to Kenyon criticised Brexiters for spouting “nationalist pish” and warned that leaving the EU would inflict economic harm. On the same forum, he appeared to suggest Hillary Clinton was responsible for the Manchester Arena bombing because of her support for the attack on Libya. “Had she stayed out of Libya, the MEN arena bombing wouldn’t have happened,” the post read.
Reform continued to stick by Kenyon, as Farage complained to the Charity Commission about Hope Not Hate, which first revealed offensive comments on Kenyon’s deleted X account, including the remarks about Vorderman. Hope Not Hate said Reform was trying to dodge scrutiny over the posts.
Lowe and Farage continued to slug it out on social media. Farage endorsed a ban on cousin marriage in Sweden, saying the practice was “inherently un-British”. He stopped short of pledging a similar ban in the UK but called for a serious conversation on the issue.
As on so many issues, Lowe said he would go further. Replying to Farage, he said: “This is all so pathetic – commit to banning it. That’s exactly what Restore Britain will do. Show some balls for a change.”
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