LONDON — Nigel Farage was hoping to sabotage Labour’s leadership fight. But a former ally is now trying to eat into his vote from the right — with some significant online help.
Next month’s Makerfield by-election looked set to be a head-to-head battle between Farage’s Reform UK and Andy Burnham — a Labour mayor who hopes the contest will provide a stepping-stone in his push to become prime minister.
But a Survation poll released this weekend put Restore Britain — a relatively obscure party led by multimillionaire former football chairman Rupert Lowe — in third place. Campaigners who have been on the ground suggest that study, which has only a limited sample size, could even underestimate support for Lowe’s operation.
It’s enough to have Farage spooked. The Reform UK leader’s frustration bubbled over this weekend after X owner Elon Musk shared a video from Lowe and claimed: “Only Restore Britain can save Britain.”
Farage warned the tech billionaire was trying to “split the right of British politics as best he can.” And he said: “This is supporting a party that’s one man with a social media account.”
“Quite what he’s trying to achieve, I have no idea,” he added.
Lowe, who broke from Reform last year, is the sole member of parliament for the outfit, which has no organized local ground game to speak of.
His uncompromising pitch for mass deportations, net-negative migration, and a pushback against the perceived “Islamification of Britain” has helped him build support on Britain’s far-right fringes, winning the backing of figures deemed too controversial for Farage as he pushes for mainstream power.
The Restore Britain leader’s proposals, and insistence that he doesn’t care if he is branded a racist, have meanwhile seen him become a popular figure among online right-wing commentators, whose content often flies under the radar of the U.K. political mainstream.
Since the start of 2026, American streamer Zach Hoyt — better known as Asmongold — has repeatedly featured clips and speeches from Lowe on his platforms. Hoyt is one of YouTube’s biggest streamers with 4.5 million subscribers on the platform. He has 3.5 million subscribers on the gaming platform Twitch.
His supportive videos have amassed close to 5 million views on YouTube alone, and that number would likely be significantly higher if live streams and clips posted by other content creators were taken into account.
Lowe has meanwhile gained a following through podcast appearances. A discussion with American journalist Tucker Carlson — who campaigned vigorously for Donald Trump in 2024 but has since split with him over the Iran war — attracted nearly a million views on YouTube. Other podcast appearances on channels like the BlackBeltBarrister and The Peter McCormack Show have achieved a similar reach.
While Lowe’s rivals in Reform UK and the Labour Party have spent thousands on slick Facebook and Instagram ads in the opening weeks of the by-election campaign, Restore’s comparatively modest ad spend of just over £6,000 has largely been used to promote unvarnished and lengthy text posts that flit between espousing their radical policies, or attacking Farage for watering down his agenda.
But the amplification of Lowe’s message by other content creators is paying off.
It has handed him a following on Facebook of 1.2 million — twice the number of people following British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who commands the levers of government, and beyond the following of most other U.K. political figures.
Scarlett Maguire, founder of the polling company Merlin strategies, said that profile means Lowe is now being brought up unprompted in U.K. focus groups.
“Unlike with other politicians and parties they seem to be primarily discovering Lowe on Facebook. The apparently organic nature of this reach on ordinary voters’ Facebook timelines is part of the appeal to (an admittedly very small) part of the electorate,” she said.
“In contrast to other politicians and parties he does not come mediated via external commentary or criticism, with much of the media still not engaging with or shining a light on Restore.”