The Reform MP embroiled in a civil war with Nigel Farage will be banished from the parliamentary party for life if senior figures get their way.
Mr Farage removed the whip from Great Yarmouth MP Rupert Lowe over allegations he had bullied staff and threatened party chair Zia Yusuf – claims that emerged just hours after Mr Lowe questioned Mr Farage’s leadership in a Daily Mail interview.
Mr Lowe went back on the offensive yesterday over the ‘false’ claims, with a long post on X saying he had been ‘betrayed’.
Requesting a meeting with Mr Farage, he wrote: ‘I have torn out what remaining hair I have left over the last few months trying to talk. That’s it. Just talk.
‘I have tried, and tried, and tried to resolve all of this behind closed doors. I can only smash my head against a brick wall for so long.’
But The Mail on Sunday has learned that senior Reform people are privately saying Mr Lowe should never be welcomed back.
One said: ‘Rupert can complain all he likes, but he won’t be getting the whip back. He has crossed Nigel, and the political world is littered with the bodies of people who have done that.’
Last night, the row escalated when Mr Farage accused Mr Lowe of managing to ‘fall out with all his parliamentary colleagues’ since the General Election.
Mr Farage removed the whip from Great Yarmouth MP Rupert Lowe over allegations he had bullied staff and threatened party chair Zia Yusuf
Mr Lowe went back on the offensive yesterday over the ‘false’ claims, with a long post on X saying he had been ‘betrayed’
Reform leader Nigel Farage with Lowe outside the House of Commons in London
Writing for the Sunday Telegraph, the Reform leader made clear that his party for now ‘must wait and see what findings the parliamentary authorities reach’ and what a KC appointed to look into the complaints had to say.
But in a scathing attack, he accused Mr Lowe of making a series of outbursts, ‘often involving the use of inappropriate language, to the despair of our chief whip, Lee Anderson’, adding: ‘I have been surprised and saddened at this behaviour.’
Mr Farage claimed that Reform ‘did our best to keep a lid on’ Mr Lowe’s alleged behaviour’.
That included nobody in the party saying anything publicly about a confrontation that occurred last December, when the Serjeant at Arms reportedly had to prevent Mr Lowe from coming to blows with Transport Minister Mike Kane in the Commons Chamber.
Sources have told the MoS that the Serjeant was forced to tell the two men: ‘Gentlemen please, not here.’
The confrontation took place following the final Commons debate before Christmas when the television cameras were turned off.
Mr Lowe had been asking Mr Kane about the dumping of potentially explosive fertiliser off the coast of his constituency.
In fiery exchanges afterwards, he accused the minister of not giving proper answers and angrily told him: ‘Don’t turn your back on me!’ It was then that the Serjeant, who had left for the day, was called back to stop the row escalating.
Lowe called the claims ‘vexatious’ and said the complaint to police ‘obviously went in just after I asked reasonable questions of Reform’s leadership’ in the Mail
Last night, Mr Lowe insisted that the matter was dealt with at the time and that ‘both parties, with the Speaker, agreed to move on’, adding that he was victim of ‘a malicious witch hunt’. He dismissed Mr Farage’s latest claims as ‘total rubbish’.
A Reform statement on Friday said the party was referring Mr Lowe to police, accusing him of having ‘on at least two occasions made threats of physical violence’ to Mr Yusuf.
It also mentioned allegations from two separate staffers of ‘serious bullying’ and ‘derogatory’ remarks about women.
Lowe called the claims ‘vexatious’ and said the complaint to police ‘obviously went in just after I asked reasonable questions of Reform’s leadership’ in the Mail.
Asked in the Mail interview whether Mr Farage had the potential to become PM, Lowe said it was ‘too early to know whether Nigel will deliver the goods.
‘We have to change from being a protest party led by the Messiah into being a properly structured party.’
