Nigel Farage has said he has an ‘open mind’ towards a potential election deal with Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain.
A couple of months ago, there’s little doubt that both Farage and Lowe would have shot down talk of an electoral pact immediately
But as Reform fall behind Andy Burnham’s Labour in the polls and continue to be dogged by controversy after controversy, it seems an element of desperation might already be seeping into the mind of Farage.
Ever since his controversial exit from Reform in March last year, it’s safe to say Lowe and Farage haven’t been on speaking terms.
Lowe went on to set up the hard-right, Elon Musk-backed Restore Britain and has repeatedly criticised Reform.
But it seems two weeks of Burnham as prime minister is all it has taken for Lowe and Farage to start considering an electoral pact.
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Over the weekend, Lowe posted a 12-minute video in which he seemed to suggest he was open to working with Farage and Reform again.
Now, Farage hasn’t shot down the idea.
During a press conference on Monday, Farage was asked about Lowe’s video in which he called for greater cooperation between the right-wing parties.
After questioning Lowe’s manner of going about things, Farage confirmed he had reached out to his former rival about the proposal.
Farage said he was prepared to make electoral “sacrifices if I believe it’s in the national interest,” adding he would do “whatever I could to have a sane, centre right alliance that beat Labour.”
Although he said he does “not ditch my friends”, Farage conceded there could be a situation where Restore Britain “could do us great harm.”
He concluded: “If it was the offer of a deal, it came in a very unusual way. I have responded to it with an open mind, but I’m certainly not going to be ditching people that I view to be allies.”
Lowe’s apparent olive branch to Reform comes in the wake of the Manchester mayoral election, won convincingly by Labour.
In the first preference votes, Restore won 8.7% of the vote and Reform won 21%. This has perhaps sparked concern from those on the right that there’s a very real chance of the right-wing vote being split enough to benefit Labour in an election.
But even if Restore hadn’t stood in Manchester and every single one of their votes had gone to Reform, this would still not have been enough to match Labour’s 47.1% of the first preference votes.
Restore’s absence would likely have also had almost no impact on the second preference votes either. After second preference votes were counted, Labour’s Bev Craig beat Reform UK’s Sian Astley by 309,525 to 157,178.