Tories ‘must end arrangement’ giving Restore’s Rupert Lowe seat on top Commons committee

He was elected as a Reform UK MP for Great Yarmouth but fell out with Farage and quit the party.

The demand that the Tories distance themselves from Restore comes after another post by Downes on Saturday, in which he described Israel's conflict in Gaza as a “genocide” and attacked the Daily Telegraph for “attacking” him “for saying that Muslims are less British” than Christians by virtue of their faith.

“The Telegraph, on the other hand, has spent the last 3 years running cover for Israel’s genocide against Muslims in Gaza.

“So who is the real extremist here?”

Labour MP David Taylor told the JC: "Especially given Restore's co-founder heavily suggested Farage had been bought by the Reform Jewish Alliance, the Conservatives must drop any arrangements they have with Rupert Lowe, and commit to ruling out any future partnership or formal pact with him or his party going forward."

In an interview with the Spectator last year, Lowe said that one Conservative MP suggested that he take the party’s whip, something he appeared hesitant to do.

“I think I could join the Tory party, but I think that would limit my ability to do what I’m doing now which is to challenge the consensus” as an independent MP.

In June, Kemi Badenoch heaped praise on Lowe in an interview with the Spectator and positively contrasted him with the leader of Reform UK.

“Rupert Lowe wants to cut spending in a way that Nigel Farage doesn’t,” she said, although caveating that she probably wouldn’t accept him as a Conservative MP, but added: “I respect the fact that he turns up for work, which Nigel Farage doesn’t do. He does policy. He doesn’t run away.”

Lowe has previously been criticised, including by the Jewish Leadership Council, for comparing the grooming gang scandal to the Holocaust.

He has also campaigned in favour of the banning of Halal and Kosher slaughter of animals.

A Conservative spokesperson defended the decision to give Lowe one of their party’s spaces on the Public Accounts Committee.

A spokesperson told the JC: “Kemi wanted someone with business experience on PAC and Rupert Lowe has been doing a good job holding the Labour government to account on their waste of public money.

They continued: “Kemi is always willing to work cross-party in the public interest, which is why she also put former Labour MP Rosie Duffield on the Women and Equalities Committee and DUP MP Sammy Wilson on the Environmental Audit Committee.”

Asked whether the party would rule out any electoral pact with Lowe or Restore Britain, a party spokesperson replied: “There will be no electoral pacts with any political party. If voters want a party that will cut welfare, cut taxes, grow the economy and get Britain working again, they must vote Conservative.”

There is also speculation in the press about possible talks about a deal between Lowe and his former party Reform UK.

However, at a press conference on Monday, Farage appeared to indicate that he would require Downes’s departure as a pre-condition for any agreement between the pair.

Without naming him, he told assembled journalists: “I do think it’s fair to say that there are one or two people in the orbit of the upper echelons of that party who, if I sat down and talked to, I think our members and our voters would utterly shocked that I’d done it.”

Farage continued: “We can talk to Rupert Lowe, that’s fine, but when you have co-founders etc putting out what I’ve called the ‘old theory’ that we probably haven’t heard in this country since 1936, and you have other adjacent, publicly-supporting people demanding that all Jews be removed from the country, just as an example.

“The condition I would put on it is that those people would have to be out of the inner circle.”