When Rupert Lowe walked out of Reform after a row with Nigel Farage and founded his own hard-right party called Restore, he did so with £2.5m start up cash.
But due to a loophole in Britain’s electoral law, he does not have to say where that money came from.
Lowe’s hard-right party – which wants to supplant Nigel Farage’s Reform UK as the main party of the populist right – was registered with the Electoral Commission in February with a bigger war chest than any party set-up in the last three years.
Shorts
In just a few short months the party has become worrisome for Farage. Championed by the US tech billionaire Elon Musk, it took seven per cent of the vote in last month’s Makerfield by-eletion that propelled Labour’s Andy Burnham back to Parliament.
