LONDON (AFP): Britain’s hard-right Reform UK party is riding high in the polls but a bitter feud between charismatic leader Nigel Farage and a fellow lawmaker praised by Elon Musk is threatening its rise.
Policy differences over immigration appear central to the split in the insurgent group, which additionally finds itself under pressure over Britain’s support for Ukraine against Russia’s invasion.
“I think the bigger mystery is not that they’re fighting, but that it took so long,” Manchester University politics professor Robert Ford said of the upstart anti-immigrant party.
“Every radical right outfit, pretty much everywhere, and every outfit associated with Nigel Farage has had bouts of this kind of infighting,” he told AFP.
Reform secured 14 percent of the vote at Britain’s last general election in July 2024, winning five seats in the 650-seat parliament – an unprecedented haul for a hard-right party in the UK.
The party has since gone from strength to strength and last month topped a YouGov poll of voting intentions on 27 percent, two points ahead of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s ruling Labour party.
Bookmakers have even made arch-Eurosceptic Farage favorite to be Britain’s next leader, although the next election is likely in 2029 and the UK’s voting system disadvantages smaller parties.
But in recent days a war of words has broken out between Farage, who helped convince Britons to leave the European Union in 2016, and fellow MP Rupert Lowe.
‘Protest party’
The splits first emerged last Thursday when Lowe told the Daily Mail newspaper that Reform remained a “protest party led by the messiah” under Farage.
Reform suspended Lowe the next day, reporting him to police over claims of threatening violence against the party’s chairman. He now sits as an independent.
Reform also said it had received complaints from two female employees about alleged “serious bullying” in Lowe’s parliamentary office, allegations Lowe strenuously denies.
In a post on X on Sunday, he said his name was being “dragged through the mud as part of a political assassination because I dared to question Nigel Farage.”
Farage has defended Lowe’s suspension and said his former colleague had “dented” Reform’s “sense of unity.”
Westminster watchers speculate that a source of tension could be US tech billionaire Musk saying earlier this year that businessman-turned politician Lowe should lead Reform.
They also note that Farage has had high-profile fallouts before, notably during his time at the UK Independence Party in the early-mid 2000s.
“He’s always been a ‘my way or the highway’ kind of politician when it comes party leadership,” said Tim Bale, politics professor at Queen Mary University of London.
Analysts note too that Lowe has become a vocal advocate of “mass deportations” of irregular migrants, a position that Farage has distanced himself from.
Higher stakes
“Farage is of the view that if you do go too far right, if you do stray beyond the boundaries of acceptability, you pay a price,” said Ford.
The row is good timing for Labour which has increasingly trained its sights on Reform in the run-up to local elections in May by cracking down on immigration.
Starmer is also enjoying a poll bounce due to his attempts to secure a peace deal acceptable to Ukraine.
Farage on the other hand was criticized for saying Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy showed the US President Donald Trump “no respect” during their awkward meeting in the Oval Office.
Farage is a long-time fan of Trump and in 2014 named Russian President Vladimir Putin as the world leader he most admired.
“On Ukraine, on Putin, on Trump, his views are a long way from the views of the vast majority of people,” said Ford.
While Farage’s feud with Lowe might damage Reform in the short term, Bale expects the Reform leader to ward off any wider civil war.
“If you’re a Reform MP, who are you going to go with? The guy who’s put you on the map or some guy who’s recently got into parliament and who not many people have heard of?” he asked.
And if Reform continues to threaten the political establishment then it will have to ride out more negative coverage.
“Higher poll performance delivers higher scrutiny,” said Ford.
