At the start of this year, he launched Restore as a hard-right rival to Reform. A senior Reform source told The i Paper: “We can see a deal is not going to happen, because now Rupert Lowe’s said no.” “They’ll never get more than a few percentage points, they’ll nibble away at Reform but they’re not going to replace Reform. Some people in Reform think that he wanted to wrongfoot Farage and create divisions in his party. A senior Restore source said: “We focus on policy, they seem to be interested in personality.”