Rupert Lowe says time’s running out to fix the UK and Reform have ‘one shot’ at saving us – and many Brits agree
EUROPE is on the brink of collapse, Nigel Farage is on course to be Prime Minister and Britain needs a healthy dose of right-wing policy and Elon Musk to shake things up.
That’s the view of one of the House of Commons’ most talked about new MPs – and the speed at which he is going viral would suggest there are millions of Brits out there who agree.
When Rupert Lowe appeared on The Sun’s Never Mind the Ballots show this week, the numbers went off the charts.
His simple warning – that time is running out to fix the country and his party Reform will only have “one shot” at saving Britain – seemed the chime.
The 67-year-old former public schoolboy, city slicker and chairman of Southampton FC is an unlikely revolutionary to take on the British Establishment.
Yet the softly spoken multi-millionaire pensioner is emerging as one of the brightest stars of the 2024 intake of newbie MPs, even getting stopped for selfies by members of the public when he was on his way into Sun HQ.
He’s the first to admit that “taking on a new career at 66 was a pretty, pretty unusual thing to do, but look it has to be done”.
And hundreds of thousands of viewers seemed to like what they hear, with Lowe also a big hit on social media, constantly promoted by the world’s richest man and Trump-super fan Elon Musk.
He heaps praise on the “world’s premier entrepreneur”, arguing the boss of X shows what can be delivered “if you have vision”.
But he bats away the billionaires‘ hint that he should be leading Reform rather than Farage.
Lowe insists he has “no need to play politics” instead arguing “I’m a successful individual, I’ve come into Parliament to change the way we’re governed – I give my parliamentary salary to charities.”
And he says it’s time to look at politics through a business lens, saying younger voters are turning away from the older parties because of one simple question: “What’s in it for me? The five golden rules of business. What’s in it for me?”
“And the answer is what’s in it for them is change,” he adds, “what they need is change, and what they need is deregulation. And what they need is, is the revival of opportunity.”
Amid a sea of trade unionists, party bag carriers and charity workers littered across the massive new Labour benches, Lowe’s business credentials put him head and shoulders above those most likely to be next generation of government ministers.
“At the end of the day we’ve got Labour MPs of 21 so it’s an extraordinary dynamic”, he says.
“My grandmother used to say the old are wise and the young are able. So I think we have to find a blend of the two somehow.”
There’s a lot of young people who are very concerne about the way the country is going, and I honestly don’t blame them.
Rupert Lowe
And current ministers have their heads in their hands as he machine-guns them with awkward questions about the true costs of migration, from the nationality of criminals and just many foreigners are claiming benefits.
But despite his age, Lowe has Britain’s wayward woke youth in his targets, warning: “There’s a lot of young people who are very concerned about the way the country is going, and I honestly don’t blame them.
“Ultimately I think Britain has been failed by its establishment and I think they can see that and they’ve got a lot more to lose than certainly me and probably you.
“I think it’s their country. They should have a bigger stake in it.”
Just when he should be putting his feet up after a long career, Lowe won his seat in Great Yarmouth last year after a brief stint as an MEP in Farage’s short-lived Brexit Party.
It’s not a case of pivoting to the right, the problem we’ve got is that the entire establishment has headed left at some pace.
Rupert Lowe
But he said he didn’t have an option, when he looked at the direction of politics and the economy, warning: “what is happening progressively is the state is getting bigger and bigger. Entrepreneurial activity is too low, taxes are too high.
“The private sector is working harder and harder to fund this unproductive overhead, and it’s taking opportunity away from young people. So they’ve got nothing to lose from voting for change.”
So what’s his solution? “It’s not a case of pivoting to the right” he says, “the problem we’ve got is that the entire establishment has headed left at some pace.
“So all that happens is then a common sense party is not only described as far right, when actually all it is is the common sense party.
“We just want the return of common sense, now if that’s what people describe as right wing. Yeah, then we need a good dose of right-wing.
And he says if things don’t change quickly in this country, then we just have to look at what is happening to the EU which he says is “now living its last dying, sort of thrashings of life.
He warns: “I think it will disintegrate because it is a globalist construct, post-war, socialist construct, which is going to implode.
“Germany is struggling financially, and France is bust, and you’ve got this sort of huge homunculus of countries which is dysfunctional. And I think it will, it will fall apart.”
We’re not the finished article
Instead, he draws inspiration from the United States and the victory of Donald Trump where “we’re seeing the return of some form of semblance of capitalism.”
Setting his sight on power in just four years, Lowe says: “We have to win enough votes to change the way in which the country is governed and to reform, which is what we’re called Reform.
“And if I’ve got a fiver for every time I heard reform, reform, reform in the House of Commons, I’d be a rich man.
“So honestly, we are the hope of reform. We are. If you like, the equivalent of what’s happening in America.”
But he warns that although Reform is surging in the polls there is plenty of work to be done tackling the biggest issues facing the country: “We’ve got 9 million people of working age who are not working…we’re bringing in unskilled workers…Our GDP per capita is going down.”
We don’t want to be shooting from the hip. We’re only going to have one shot at this…
Rupert Lowe
He says: “I don’t think like Trump we will have a second bite of the cherry. So we’ve got to get it right the first time. There’s a lot of work to do.
“We’re not finished article, we understand that. We’ve got to basically build structure. We’ve got to build policy. And we’ve got to come in with a plan which, which rest assured, we will do.”
And will it work, could we really see his boss Nigel Farage crossing the threshold of 10 Downing Street? “At the moment, he’s got every chance of being the Prime Minister, Lowe insists: “I mean, he’s leading. We’re leading the polls and he’s leading Reform.”
“It’s work in progress and it’s a huge job now. I hope that we will be able to do it in a timely and well-structured way.
“We don’t want to be shooting from the hip. We’re only going to have one shot at this…”
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