Rupert Lowe

Rupert Lowe is a businessman and politician best known as the former chairman of Southampton Football Club and as a corporate turnaround executive. He was elected as the Reform UK MP for Great Yarmouth at the 2024 general election, becoming one of five Reform MPs in the House of Commons. He was subsequently expelled from the Reform UK parliamentary group following a public dispute with Nigel Farage over party governance and direction. His political profile relies heavily on social media: he had approximately 170,000 followers on X at the time of his expulsion.

On 13 February 2026 Lowe launched Restore Britain as an independent populist-right party. For the May 2026 local elections it contested candidates only in the Great Yarmouth area through an affiliated group, Great Yarmouth First, as a proof-of-concept, the party's national ambitions are targeted at 2028. By 4-5 May 2026 Restore Britain entered the YouGov Westminster tracker at 4%, its first mainstream polling appearance, and on 7 May Great Yarmouth First won 9 seats on Norfolk County Council, contributing to a hung council where Reform fell three short of a majority. Seven Kent councillors defected to Restore Britain on its launch, providing a modest elected base independent of Great Yarmouth.

On 7 July 2026, Restore Britain declined to contest the Clacton by-election Nigel Farage triggered by resigning his seat, joining Labour, the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party in staying out, while indicating it intends to contest the anticipated second, definitive by-election once the parliamentary standards inquiry into Farage concludes. Lowe's stance keeps Restore Britain positioned for the resolved contest rather than the immediate one, continuing to test whether the populist right has generated capital independent of Farage.