Wed, Jun 03, 2026 page7

• Britain is being dragged into a very ugly place

  The ubiquity of social media and the splintering political system have created the perfect conditions for the type of ethno-nationalist party that would once have been confined to the fringes to enter the mainstream

  • By Rosa Prince / Bloomberg Opinion
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  It has become fashionable to say Reform UK has shifted the Overton window, the concept that encapsulates the range of opinion acceptable to the mainstream at a particular time. Nigel Farage’s hard-right party has moved the terms of the British debate on immigration, much as its predecessors created the spark that ultimately fueled Brexit.

  The rewards have been immense. From its foundations just seven years ago, Reform is now dominant in English local authorities. Polls suggest Farage is on his way to entering No. 10 at the next election.

  It is easy to forget Reform still has only eight members of the British parliament. In three weeks’ time it hopes to add another in a special election in Makerfield in northwest England. A victory would be doubly sweet, because it would be at the expense of Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, who is contesting the seat to re-enter the British House of Commons and supplant Keir Starmer as Labour prime minister. The vote is shaping up as a historic moment in British politics.

  

  Illustration: Mountain People

  However, Reform’s ambition could be thwarted by Restore Britain, the similarly monikered rival that has seized advantage of Farage’s shifting of the Overton window and set up camp even further into the far right. This is not just bad news for Reform. Restore’s social-media march into culture warzones such as climate change and social cohesion is profoundly depressing. To paraphrase poet William Butler Yeats, if the center cannot hold, then things would fall apart.

  The problem with iconoclasm is that it is difficult to control. Having blurred the boundaries of what is acceptable, Farage is now in a struggle to hold the line. His party already often fails to get its supporters to stay on the right side of naked racism. Hard-left opponents such as the Green Party regularly flunk the same test on anti-Semitism.

  Reform has at times been unable, or unwilling, to weed out election candidates who voice views that are abhorrently sexist, anti-Semitic, pro-Russian or Islamophobic. It has not been strong enough on condemning mobs targeting asylum seekers. Once you are into this ugly world, what is to stop anti-immigration voters from jumping all the way into Restore Britain’s arms?

  The new party advocates a nasty “little Englander” patriotism that was considered beyond the pale, but has entered the mainstream. Founder Rupert Lowe and his supporters rail against what he calls the “relentless creep of radical Islam,” and he is unconcerned about being tagged as far right or racist.

  Restore advocates “make America great again”-style mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, including asylum seekers, and proposes raids to eject as many as 2 million men, women and children over three years. In a recent X post, Lowe said a Restore-led government would “ban the burqa, sharia courts, cousin marriage, halal slaughter, dominating public prayer. Reverse mass immigration. Deport foreign islamists. End political islam [sic].”

  Founded only three months ago, Restore is polling between 3 percent to 6 percent. That might not seem a lot, but it is worrying Reform. Farage’s party has already lost one in eight supporters to the upstart, pollster John Curtice said.

  In Britain’s newly fragmented and highly fluid politics, the old Labour and Conservative duopoly has been replaced by five viable national parties, as well as powerful nationalists in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Having another party on the far right just adds to the confusion.

  In Makerfield, a recent poll (albeit on a small sample) put Restore in third place on 7 percent, ahead of the mainstream Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. That is enough to stymie Reform, which is trailing Labour by 3 percent. Reports on the ground suggest this might even underestimate Restore’s reach.

  Social media is a big part of the party’s success. Lowe has 2 million Facebook followers, substantially more than Starmer. Restore supporters tend to be young, male, non-graduates who are economically insecure, and largely get their news and opinion from social media, Focaldata researcher Jack Peacock said.

  Before last month’s local elections, I had a quick scroll through accounts identifying themselves with Restore, finding dozens of messages with photographs of black and Asian Reform candidates. The implication was clear: Farage’s outfit lacks the necessary racial purity.

  It is no great surprise that Restore is heavily backed by Elon Musk, the racially fixated billionaire owner of X who regularly shares Restore posts. Other far-right provocateurs have followed suit, including Tucker Carlson, whose YouTube interview with Lowe has been viewed millions of times.

  A multimillionaire businessman and former soccer-club chairman who served as a European lawmaker for Farage’s Brexit Party, Lowe was elected to the British parliament in 2024 under the Reform banner. However, after years of friction with the party leader, he went it alone about a year ago. The motivation was likely a tweet from Musk — who used to like Farage, but now finds him too lacking in blood-and-soil fervor — arguing that Lowe should take over Reform.

  Restore’s rise has been so swift that Reform is panicking. Attempts to encourage Lowe to step aside to avoid splitting the anti-migrant right in Makerfield have been met with derision. Farage’s struggles would be watched with a wry smile by the Conservative Party, which has been through this particular dance with him over the years.

  Reform seems divided between those who want to ramp up the immigrant bashing, and those who fear that might put off defectors from the Tories. Last week, the party’s home affairs spokesman Zia Yusuf slapped down Robert Jenrick, an ex-Tory minister who heads Reform’s economics brief, for denying that a Farage government would deport foreign nationals living in social housing. Lowe proudly advocates for such a scheme.

  The temptation for Labour and the Conservatives, who have suffered from the rise of Reform, is to relish Farage’s difficulties. That’s particularly true of Burnham, as pretty much every vote for Restore in Makerfield would be one less for Reform, but no one should celebrate the rise of a party like this one.

  The ubiquity of social media and the splintering political system have created the perfect conditions for the type of boorish, ethno-nationalist party that would once have been confined to the fringes to enter the mainstream. We are all poorer as a result.

  Rosa Prince is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering UK politics and policy. She was formerly an editor and writer at Politico and the Daily Telegraph, and is the author of Comrade Corbyn and Theresa May: The Enigmatic Prime Minister. This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
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