1.2.3 – Minor UK parties
1.3.1 – Electoral systems
A significant amount of political attention is currently on the Makerfield by-election, due to be held on Thursday 18 June, with Andy Burnham seeking a return to the House of Commons and, potentially, making a bid for the Labour leadership. A poll by Survation in recent weeks put Burnham narrowly ahead of the Reform candidate, Robert Kenyon (43% to 40%).
However, the most noticeable number in the polling was the relatively strong performance of Restore Britain party on 7%, which would be enough to deprive Reform UK of a plurality.
Restore Britain was set up formally as a political party earlier this year. Its leader, Rupert Lowe, is the MP for Great Yarmouth and the party’s only representative in the House of Commons.
Lowe was originally elected as a Reform MP at the 2024 General Election but was suspended from the party over allegations of bullying, although Lowe denied this and said it was a hoax in response to his criticisms of the party leader, Nigel Farage.
Whatever the reason or Lowe’s departure from Reform, he has since established his new party, which has been described as being to the right of Reform, and has received the endorsement of various far-right figures, as well as the endorsement of Elon Musk, who has used his X (formerly Twitter) platform to boost Lowe’s posts.
Restore Britain’s policies include net-negative immigration (more people leaving the UK than arriving), and the reintroduction of the death penalty. With virtually no chance of winning a general election any time soon, it has not felt the need to water down any of its policies in the way Reform UK might be said to, given its increasingly realistic prospects of having to implement them.
Whilst Restore Britain’s performance in nationwide polling has been more muted (3% in the most recent YouGov poll), their presence is an interesting example of the growing support for right-wing parties. It may also come to serve as an example of the limitations of first-past-the-post, should support for the party deprive another party of a similar disposition the seat in favour of a candidate at the other end of the political spectrum.