Rupert Lowe, the Restore Britain leader and Member of Parliament for Great Yarmouth, a coastal seat in eastern England, published a long statement on X on Friday admitting his relationships with Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch and other Tory lawmakers, after weeks of questions from this website and others about those ties and about Lowe’s alleged relationship with Conservative fixer Dougie Smith.
“Yes, I’ve met Kemi Badenoch. I speak to her occasionally. I like her personally. We have worked together in Parliament,” Lowe wrote. He went on: “Do I like Kemi Badenoch and some other Conservative MPs personally? Yes.” He added: “I will work with Conservatives. I will work with Labour.”
This is not his first admission. In August, this website reported Lowe telling commentator Dan Wootton he had “been in touch with Kemi” and that there was “no issue,” and boasting that the Conservatives had put him on the Public Accounts Committee, Parliament’s powerful spending watchdog. He still holds that seat, given from the Tories’ own allocation in October 2025. Lowe was elected for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK in July 2024, lost the party’s whip in March 2025, and now leads Restore Britain which primarily campaigns against Reform, and rarely ever against Westminster’s “uniparty.”
Lowe’s admission may come as a shock to some of his base that sees him as an anti-establishment figure.
The National Pulse’s Editor-in-Chief, Raheem Kassam, replied to Lowe, saying it was “good that you finally admit you speak to Kemi and that you target Reform more than anyone else in elections,” and that the post showed “why it was impossible for Nigel to accept your false offer of working together. Anyone who works with the Tories cannot be trusted.” He then asked what the statement ignored: “your relationship with Dougie Smith.”
Smith is a long-serving Conservative backroom operator, described by the Guardian as a fixer “feared by MPs.” On November 3, Kassam posted a timeline of Lowe’s Tory ties, including a 2019 withdrawal from a race in Dudley “reportedly days after meeting Tory fixer Dougie Smith.” On October 30 he called Restore Britain “a Dougie Smith op.” Lowe’s Friday post does not mention Smith. He said he was answering “Reform politicians.”
In Lowe’s own words, he likes the Tory leader, will work with her party and with Labour, sits in a Conservative committee seat, and intends to fight Farage’s party for every vote. That is not a revolt against Britain’s uniparty. It is how you get another one. And, if the right stays split, another Labour government.
I want to address an allegation directly, because Reform politicians seem determined to spread the idea that I am somehow working in coordination with the Conservative Party and Kemi Badenoch.
Yes, I was a member of the Conservative Party. In 1993. My children have since been…
— Rupert Lowe MP (@RupertLowe10) November 6, 2026
It’s good that you finally admit you speak to Kemi and that you target Reform more than anyone else in elections. This is a good tweet establishing why it was impossible for Nigel to accept your false offer of working together. Anyone who works with the Tories cannot be trusted.…
— Raheem J. Kassam (@RaheemKassam) November 6, 2026
