‘I like Rupert Lowe’s plain speaking’: suspended MP haunts Nigel Farage’s big rally

As Reform UK launched its English local elections campaign in Birmingham there were murmurs among activists about the fate of a ‘popular figure’

There was one name on the lips of many Reform supporters before their party’s local election campaign launch in Birmingham last Friday night, but it wasn’t Nigel Farage.

Instead, conversation turned to Rupert Lowe, one of five Reform MPs elected last year, who was suspended this month when allegations of bullying emerged, the day after he had described Farage as a “messianic” leader of a protest party.