Why Reform should avoid a pact with Restore.

The path to power doesn't run through Rupert Lowe's 4 per cent - it runs through millions of Conservative, Labour, and none-of-the-above voters.

Join Britain's fastest-growing independent political community which provides more than 90,000 readers with counter-cultural evidence, analysis, and debate that challenges the establishment. Our work is funded by our readers. Become a paid subscriber to unlock every article, join our live discussions Mondays at 7pm (UK time), our group chat, leave comments, and know you’re helping the silent majority.

---

---

One big story in British politics this week has been the idea of an electoral pact, between Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage, and Restore Britain, led by Rupert Lowe.

The debate was sparked by Rupert Lowe using a professionally produced video to reach out to Nigel Farage and highlight what he views as areas of common ground.

Clearly, there’s a lot of politics going on.

By releasing the video, Rupert Lowe is trying to project himself as ‘the good guy’ who is merely trying to bring right-wing forces together. He is also trying to stay relevant, by distracting onlookers from a string of poor election performances for Restore.

Nigel Farage, meanwhile, cannot ignore the offer because if he does, amid a wider dip in the polls for Reform, then it could look like he’s dismissing people further to his right. Hence why he’s been trying to sound conciliatory towards Restore voters.

But putting the politics to one side for a moment, I want to explain why I think the broader idea of an electoral pact between Reform and Restore, which some people clearly want to see, is actually a very bad idea.

Let me start by stating the obvious.

The only way the British people will be able to regain control of Britain and push it in a fundamentally different direction is by electing a majority government.

A government full of people who are willing to take on the establishment, end massively unpopular policies like mass immigration and broken borders, and roll back the Blairite revolution that began in 1997 and has basically carried on ever since.

The only way a party like that can win a majority is by getting to 32 per cent of the vote, or thereabouts, at a general election. And the only way it can do that is by mobilising a broad coalition of hardworking, tax-paying, patriotic British people.

This broad coalition should include people who have voted for Restore in the past, are still planning to vote for Restore, or are thinking about doing so.

They are decent people who, like many other Brits, have watched the country they love be smashed apart by the double blow of rampant globalisation and mass uncontrolled immigration. I completely understand their frustration.

But politics is also about arithmetic. And the arithmetic is clear.

Just look at the numbers. In the latest poll, by YouGov, Reform is supported by close to 1 in 4 Brits. Restore is supported by 1 in 25.

In other recent surveys, by credible pollsters, Restore does not even register in the polls at all, such is its lack of support in the country.

At nationwide elections for local government two months ago, Reform contested 99 per cent of available seats. Restore contested just 0.3 per cent.

Reform has already won two nationwide sets of local elections, back-to-back, as well as dozens of local councils, a parliamentary by-election, and most recently a Police and Crime Commissioner election in Norfolk.

Restore has not won anything — or come close to winning anything — outside the one area of Great Yarmouth, which Lowe won when he was a Reform (not Restore) MP.

The two parties, in other words, are simply not comparable. And with the Tories still flatlining, with remarkably little evidence of any ‘Kemi bounce’ in England, this leaves Nigel Farage and Reform as the only credible alternative on the right of politics.

Now look at the broad coalition that is actually required to save Britain.

For every 1 Restore voter that Reform UK could theoretically attract, there are:

• 3 Liberal Democrat voters

• 5 Conservative voters

• 6 Labour voters

• And 10 non-voters who have already given up on politics because they simply no longer believe there is somebody who speaks for them.

From an electoral perspective, the available pool of right-leaning Tory voters, culturally conservative Labour voters, protest-inclined Lib Dems, and disillusioned non-voters is many, many times larger than the Restore electorate.

What I’m not saying is that Restore voters should be ignored or looked past. Far from it. They should be treated with respect. They should be brought into this broad coalition of patriotic British people. Because that is where they belong.

But what I am saying is that if Reform UK genuinely wants to win the next election and outflank the failing establishment then it must remain relentlessly focused on the largest available pool of voters – not the smallest.

Reform must keep throwing a wide net at all times. That is what first-past-the-post majoritarian systems demand. You do not win power in these systems by appealing to a small group of voters who are already aligned; you win by building the broadest possible electoral coalition. This is what Margaret Thatcher did. What Tony Blair did. What Boris Johnson did. None of them prioritised ideological purists.

And this broad coalition must also include millions of British people from minority backgrounds, including many British Jews — who are often just as patriotic and just as strongly opposed to immigration, broken borders, two-tier policing, Islamism, sectarianism, the radical left, and record taxes, as their white British counterparts.

These voters are not peripheral to Reform's future — they are central to it.

I say this not just because of the nearly one in three minority Brits who voted for Brexit. Or the nearly one in three who tell pollsters they too ‘feel like a stranger in Britain because of immigration’.

Or because I personally campaigned alongside many British Hindus, Sikhs, and Jews in Gorton and Denton, and saw just how central they have become to this coalition.

I’m saying it, too, because of how these voters, along with a vast swathe of Middle England, will simply run a mile if Reform is seen to get too close to Restore activists who spent much of the last year attacking, abusing, and insulting them.

Restore voters? They should be welcomed with open arms into the broad coalition -- alongside those millions of Tory, Labour, Lib Dem, and non-voters.

But senior Restore activists and their allies in “independent media” who spent the last year insisting that Nigel Farage “must never become prime minister”, insulting senior Reform spokespersons, harassing Reform activists during by-election campaigns, failing to police extremists within their party, and becoming a trojan horse for the same anti-Semitism and open racism we see in Zack Polanski’s Greens? No thanks.

Reform must always remember that many of the people it hopes to attract have watched the online Restore ecosystem descend into personal abuse, conspiracy theories and language they find deeply unsettling. Associating too closely with this culture would make Reform's task of mobilising the broad coalition impossible.

Lastly, winning that general election – and I genuinely believe that we only have one or two elections left to pull Britain back from the brink – will also require something else that many people routinely ignore.

The next general election in Britain will not be decided on Twitter/X. It will be decided by millions of ordinary people who worry about paying their household bills, anti-social behaviour in their communities, getting a GP appointment, finding decent schools, and a social contract that puts people who work hard last.

Those voters are not looking for another protest movement. They are looking for a serious government with ideas that stretch beyond immigration and the small boats.

The road to winning them over, the road to Downing Street, the road to power does not run through a party polling 4 per cent. It runs through millions of Conservative voters who have rightly lost faith in their party, millions of culturally conservative Labour voters who feel abandoned in the Labour heartlands, and millions of non-voters who no longer believe that anybody in Westminster speaks for them.

That is where Britain’s future will be decided. And that is where Reform should keep its eyes firmly fixed, no matter what people might say on social media.

---

Paid subscribers can join Matt Live EVERY Monday evening at 7pm UK time on the Substack App to discuss the big issues of the day. Tonight we will be discussing the arrival of Andy Burnham, what it means, what to expect, and YOUR predictions!

---

---