Mark Best, Socialist Party National Committee
A row has erupted among Reform UK’s five MPs. Multimillionaire Rupert Lowe criticised fellow multimillionaire Nigel Farage for his “messianic” position of control over the party. The next day, a statement hit the press that Lowe was suspended pending an investigation into bullying in his parliamentary offices and threats to the party chair passed onto the police. Allegations which had been known to the Reform leadership before Christmas.
The establishment’s anti-establishment party is already showing some of the splits, division and venom seen in the last Tory government, less than a year since entering Parliament. And with only five MPs! The crisis has, at root, a basis in the lack of a clear way forward for the capitalist system in Britain. Reports in the press say that Lowe and Farage have clashed over how much to blame migrants for the bosses’ crisis.
A bosses’ party
Despite their near-constant appearances in the media, none of the Reform MPs offer a working-class alternative to the main parties. With more company directorships than you can shake a stick at, in the same interview he gave Farage a blasting, Lowe had the cheek to say MPs deserve to be paid £250,000 a year! Meanwhile, Farage earns over £1 million a year just from his appearances on GB News. Lowe, supported by other Reform MPs, also put forward a bill to Parliament by praising Argentina’s right-wing President Milei and calling for public services funding, including the NHS, to be slashed.
While Starmer’s Labour governs on behalf of the bosses, the need for a genuine working-class alternative is clear. This latest incident shows that Reform isn’t a bastion of stability, necessarily on a clear upward trajectory in the polls up until a general election. But the risks of the rise of figures like Farage are real. Reform is planning to stand in the upcoming local elections, hoping to pick up disaffected Labour and Tory voters. The Socialist Party is also planning to stand in these elections as part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition. We will be standing on a programme to fight the cuts, for the jobs, homes and services for us all, and to point the blame at the real causes of austerity – the greedy bosses and the capitalist system itself.
