Following the open criticism, Farage said that Lowe was “completely wrong” and that Reform UK was “absolutely not a protest party.”
Writing in the Telegraph on Sunday, Farage acknowledged that the row had “dented” the “sense of unity” within the party, but said it would have been “inconceivable” not to take action.
“If the last general election taught us anything, it is that the public does not like political parties that engage in constant infighting,” Farage wrote, adding that while Reform had built a united party, “thanks to one of our MPs, Rupert Lowe, unloading a barrage of criticisms against our operations and its main actors, that sense of unity has been dented.”
Reform, which is now polling ahead of both Labour and the Conservatives according to POLITICO’s aggregated Poll of Polls, denied that the announcement of the investigation was linked to the public spat between Lowe and Farage.
The party’s deputy leader, Richard Tice, also told the BBC on Sunday that there was “absolutely no truth” to claims of a link between Lowe’s comments on Thursday and the allegations against him that emerged a day later.
Farage also addressed the ongoing investigation, saying Lowe had fallen out with his parliamentary colleagues “in one way or another” since his election eight months ago. “We did our best to keep a lid on things but, in the end, containment strategies invariably fail,” Farage added.
Lowe called the investigation a “witch hunt,” in a separate piece in the Telegraph.
