Some Christians have been hoping for their political white knight to turn up, a UK answer to Donald Trump, someone who might not be a Christian yet but someone who at least can promote a political brand that aligns with their specific ideology. Last year, it seemed that Tommy Robinson was the man they were going to throw their weight behind but Robinson’s Unite the Kingdom movement has never really got momentum.
Some now are looking to Rupert Lowe, the MP for Great Yarmouth. Lowe was initially elected as a Reform UK MP but later expelled from the party in controversial circumstances. In 2025, he set up an organisation called “Restore Britian” and this month announced that he was turning it into a political party. Aaron Edwards on his Substack, That Good Fight, has written endorsing Restore UK here . He concludes his endorsement by saying@
We need not see Rupert Lowe as a fully-fledged “Christian prince” in order to be able to stand up and support him wholeheartedly. Lowe is clearly several heads and shoulders above any other British politician inside or outside of Parliament today.
He is also one who—like Donald Trump—is not really “a politician” at all. But he is a leader, a man of courage, honesty, integrity, and justice, who in a very short time has been able to tap into and galvanise many of the sleeping lions of this nation. As such, he and his party just might do Great Britain a very great deal of good.
There will no doubt be many who wish to do him—and the nation—real harm as a consequence of the growing momentum. May God protect him, and may God be with him.
I’ve seen other Christians on social media asking whether he could be the one.
I thought it would be helpful to have a look at what Restore Britain and Rupert Lowe actually stand for. First of all, I wanted to pick up on the practicality of politics. I’ve seen a few comments to the effect, that Lowe’s popularity is exploding. This particularly because following the announcement, reportedly 80,000 people joined up to support the new party bringing them into line with the Liberal Democrats. Edwards writes:
“The massive groundswell of support they received in such a short time—including 50,000 members within the first two days alone, and over 80,000 before the end of their first week—is surely unprecedented for a brand new party. Various polls also suggest that if a General Election was held tomorrow, Restore would get a higher percentage of the vote than the Liberal Democrats and only a little less than the Conservatives.
Others have suggested that this indicates a growing move towards the right in terms of the overall political mood. Unfortunately, the figures above are not as unprecedented as Edwards argues. Indeed, the new “Your Party” on the left initially reported interest from 80,000 people, though after their chaotic beginning, this settled down to about 55,000. Indeed, hypothetic polling suggested that Your Party would surge and supplant Labour. This support failed to materialised.[1] Perhaps Jeremy Corbyn should have learnt from his time as Labour leader that signing up activists and firing them up doesn’t tend to translate into wider popularity and vote share. The right might want to learn that lesson too.
Meanwhile, the idea that we are seeing a move to the right in the political mood again is, I’m afraid, a misreading of the political runes. Support for right of centre political parties has been sitting firmly in the mid-forties over the past year, about the same as support for those on the left. Indeed, this sits pretty much at the same level that right of centre support has been for the past 50 years. It pays to know your history.
Now, this doesn’t mean that there won’t be a sudden surge in support for Lowe’s new party. Though to be clear, I think that support for right of centre parties is now locked in at that level, so Restore Britian will either take support away from Conservatives or Reform. And Lowe simply doesn’t have the name recognition of Nigel Farage.
However, there are bigger questions to answer. The first of which is “What and when does Rupert Lowe seek to restore Britian to? The name of his party feels like one of those nostalgia rants. We all think that everything was better in “the old days” but we aren’t sure exactly when those old days were. Christians however, should be clear that there wasn’t some kind of golden age that we can roll back the years of regress to. There have of course been some great moments in our history from a Christian perspective such as the abolition of slavery or the factory reform acts but surely those moments in themselves reflect that they were preceded by dark days when slavery and child labour were perceived as fine, Christian even.
We may though get a clue from Restore Britian’s policies. First, there are the economic policies. Lowe is pro cutting taxation. That’s no bad thing. I’m in favour of a lower tax burden. Actually I’d prefer to see parties committing not to cutting specific taxes but rather reducing the overall tax burden. Interestingly Lowe’s priorities are to reduce taxes for businesses and contractors. Those specific policies take priority over reducing the tax burden for everyone. [2]
One of the questions people will be asking is whether or not Restore Britian is in reality a single issue party, focused on immigration. Well, what you begin to see is that even as you look at other policy areas, the question keeps coming back to immigration and on foreigners. So on economic and tax policy, they say:
“Britain must stop being treated as a cash machine for the rest of the world. Every year, billions of pounds are sent abroad in remittances — money earned here but drained out of our economy to support families and communities overseas. This flow of money encourages mass migration. Migrants come not to contribute to Britain, as our leaders still insist, but to extract wealth and export it abroad. It is a pipeline that drains our communities while strengthening foreign economies at Britain’s expense.”[3]
On Welfare, Lowe writes:
Britain’s welfare system was built to support its own people, not to act as a magnet for the world. Yet today, migrants who were not even born in this country are able to access benefits, council housing, and other forms of taxpayer support.” [4]
On voting and democracy, where you might expect policies looking at the particular voting system we use, the form and role of the upper house and other such matters, the concern is purely with eliminating voter fraud through postal votes.[5]
On the environment, his headline policy is to end hosepipe bans, forgetting it seems that we experienced these in the 1970s and 80s, by increasing capacity by building more reservoirs, and you’ve guessed it:
“Implement a net negative immigration system to reduce demand. Ensure a growing supply to meet a shrinking demand. No more hosepipe bans.[6]
On education, apart from wanting to end fines for taking children out of school during term time, Restore Britain say:
Britain is home to some of the world’s oldest and most prestigious universities. We should be setting global standards in research and academic excellence – but instead of pursuing truth, our high-culture institutions have been totally captured by anti-British, anti-Western, and anti-white ideological trends such as decolonisation, intersectionality, and critical race theory.
This does not serve the interests of the British public. In fact, it is in academia that so many of the destructive ideas that have come to dominate our culture and political life originate, from gender ideology to multiculturalism.
There is no such thing as a neutral institution – and this goes for education. Our universities should be openly pro-British: proud of our history, proud of our culture, proud of our people.
We should not be afraid of rooting out subversive elements within our education system. Professors and administrative staff pushing anti-British ideology should hold no position in a publicly funded British university. Courses that brainwash students into hating their own culture should be shut down. In the most egregious cases, inquiries pertaining to entire universities must be held.[7]
It is funny isn’t it that those who claim to advocate for free speech are less keen on it when free-speech works against their own ideas. Now, there may be a whole load of stuff coming out of academia that we disagree with, surely the way to deal with such destructive nonsense is by engaging in the battle of ideas and proving that it is such. Of course, campuses should not be politicised by the left but nor does that mean that the right should control and censor either. Restore UK hasn’t provided any policies on health and social care yet. On Foreign policy, the priority is to restrict foreign aid.
On immigration, Lowe wants to completely abolish the asylum system, remove indefinite leave to remain and replace migrant hostels with tents.[8] Lowe’s aim is to see mass deportations, this will include the return of so called “illegal migrants”, encouraging the repatriation of legal migrants and a hostile environment.[9]
Lowe does not seem to be aware that there are already significant steps and costs in place for immigrants. Indefinite Leave to Remain for example costs £3,029 per person. There are also English language requirements both for ILR and for Citizenship.[10] Those seeking citizenship also have to sit a citizenship test, I’ve written often here about the asylum system and the steps asylum seekers have to go through in order to be given leave to remain.
Restore Britian is essentially an anti-immigration party. Now, the question about the extent to which we permit and restrict immigration is a legitimate one. However, the question is whether or not a single issue party focusing on this best addresses the priority of Christian voters. Further, by constantly returning to immigration in most policy areas, the result is that at least in appearance, immigrants are stigmatised and blamed.[11] Policies of repatriation and a complement ban on immigration and asylum tend, historically to be associated with the Far Right. [12]
Restore Britian insist that the UK is a Christian country and it is perhaps this statement that is drawing some support from professing Christians. However, what Lowe means by this is left rather vague. He says in his statement, launching the party:
“Restore Britain will openly recognise the Christian heritage that shaped this country’s moral and civic foundations – responsibility, duty, restraint, forgiveness and fairness.”[13]
All that Lowe manages to do is to rehash the same generic platitudes used across the political spectrum when describing so called British values.
I suspect that Christians throwing in their lot with Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain will find themselves quickly disappointed.
[1] This reflects perhaps that those hypothetical polls don’t tend to follow the same methodology as the usual tracker polls. See Polling for Restore Britain – Find Out Now
[2] Economy & Taxation – Restore Britain
[3] Economy & Taxation – Restore Britain
[4] Economy & Taxation – Restore Britain
[5] Elections & Democracy – Restore Britain
[6] Environment & Infrastructure – Restore Britain
[7] Education – Restore Britain
[8] Immigration & Border Control – Restore Britain
[9] Policy Paper – Mass Deportations: Legitimacy, Legality, and Logistics – Restore Britain
[10] Prove your knowledge of English for citizenship and settling: Overview – GOV.UK
[11] For example, the opening statement from Lowe says “The barbarians are already in the gates” Restore Britain
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