After soaring to the top of the polls as the strongest party in Britain, Reform UK has withdrawn the whip from one of its five MPs, Rupert Lowe of Greater Yarmouth, and claiming, according to The Times of London, that the party has received reports of “threats of physical violence” against chairman Zia Yusuf as well as alleged “targeting of female staff who raised concerns, and evidence of derogatory and discriminatory remarks made about women, including reference to a perceived disability.”
London’s Metropolitan Police said that it had been informed of the allegations on Thursday, however, the alleged threats are said to have occurred on December 13th. “Officers are carrying out an assessment of the allegations to determine what further action may be required,” the force said in a statement.
The timing of the allegations has been called into question by Lowe, who claimed that they were made in retaliation to comments he made earlier in the week criticising the structure of Reform and deriding leader Nigel Farage as a “messianic” figure at the helm of a “protest” party rather than acting as the frontrunning party that it has become.
“This complaint obviously went in just after I asked reasonable questions of Reform’s leadership. A malicious attempt to drag my name through the mud,” Lowe wrote on social media. He has denied all allegations.
“Let me be abundantly clear — this investigation is based on zero credible evidence against me, as has been repeatedly stated by the neutral investigator. None has been provided,” Lowe said.
Announcing the decision to withdraw the whip from Lowe, Reform Chief Whip Lee Anderson said that Lowe’s “unwillingness to cooperate in an investigation into his behaviour has meant the Parliamentary party cannot function effectively whilst Rupert is a Reform UK MP.”
“There is far too much at stake and by not taking decisive action we would risk losing everything we have built up,” Anderson continued. “I bare no malice towards Rupert and to remove the whip was a deeply painful thing to do, but delivering for our country must come first and no man is bigger than our party.”
There have been simmering tensions between Lowe and Farage for months, with the Greater Yarmouth MP having received the tacit backing of X boss Elon Musk after the American entrepreneur accused Farage of not being up to the task of leading Reform.
On Thursday, Mr Farage rejected Lowe’s accusations against the party structure, saying: “We are not a protest party in any way at all. That is utterly, completely wrong. We are an entirely positive party. Come to any Reform event and the positivity, the energy — perhaps he should come to one or two.”
“We’ve got a lot of development to do, but we’re absolutely not a protest party,” Farage maintained.
When asked why Lowe publicly criticised the party, Farage suggested that “perhaps he wants to be prime minister… most people in politics do.” On Saturday, Mr Lowe invited Mr Farage to “have dinner and resolve this in a manner that our members and the country would expect.”
The scandal comes as Reform has taken the lead in multiple national polls, pulling ahead of both the faltering Tory Party and the governing Labour Party of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.
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