I rarely write about Opposition parties, regarding the main functions of this blog to be exposing and debating government aims, policies and effectiveness. A few of you daily want to talk about Opposition parties so occasionally I relent. I have never written before about the three newish parties that have emerged that are on the right over migration and have more mixed left/right views over economies and the role of the state.
Advance revolves around Ben Habib. He was a funder and adviser to Nigel Farage who fell out with the boss and decided to run his own party as an alternative. Reform now has Nigel Farage as a powerful leader assisted by four senior spokespeople covering some of the main topics but not including Foreign Policy, defence or the NHS. All five were originally Conservative members and supporters, with two of them going on to hold senior Ministerial positions in the last Conservative led Parliament. Restore has been set up by Rupert Lowe, elected in 2024 as a Reform MP. He was removed from that party by Nigel Farage over allegations about conduct which were not proved. He decided to set up his own rival concern.
Advance has set out a Mission statement. It is a party that believes in the sovereignty of the UK. It promotes UK Christian values. It wants domestic democracy to settle more things rather than international institutions and law. It seeks greater freedom and freedom of speech. There needs to be better law and order and freedom under one unified UK law stemming from Parliament. It wants to repeal the 1988 Human Rights Act and Equality Act 2000, withdraw from the ECHR, “end state sponsored multiculturalism and foreign religious courts”, abolish IHT, reform welfare to reward work, “protect British farming, support veterans, ban first cousin marriage, ban burkas and niqabs in public places”, mandate the Union flag on public buildings.
Reform saw 5 MPs elected in 2024. Rupert Lowe was removed from the party, and James McMurdock no longer is on the whip owing to an investigation into his conduct. Reform has subsequently attracted 4 Conservative MPs to join them. None has submitted themselves for re election despite their party’s enthusiasm for elections. Reform has secured the election of one new MP in a by election and has been leading the opinion polls over the last year.
Reform has removed their big package of tax cuts presented in their 2024 Manifesto, and have abandoned their more recent ideas of abolishing the OBR and changing the Bank of England. Robert Jenrick, a former Conservative Immigration Minister has become their new Treasury Spokesman. He is saying conventional things to reassure markets. Nigel Farage has led big campaigns to highlight the illegal migrant problem. The party would take the UK out of the ECHR and make further legal changes to be able to deport illegal migrants. “Stop the boats”, “Secure and defend our border” “Deport illegal migrants” and “Scrap Indefinite leave to remain” are the four leading policies on their site. They have modified the deportation promise realising that deporting people who have lived here for some time with leave to remain, and those who who came under special schemes from Hong Kong and Ukraine is not an easy or kind thing to do.
It wishes to restore sovereignty, presumably by pulling out of various international treaties and Agreements. It wants more visible policing and tougher approaches to law and order. It wants to make work pay. It will support farmers and scrap the Family farm tax. It will scrap net zero to cut energy bills, help small business , revitalise manufacturing, rebuild armed forces, help people have children, put Britain first, dramatically cut foreign aid (which has already been substantially cut by the past and present governments), make the civil service lean and efficient. These are still largely aspirations, with more detailed policy work awaited.
Restore Britain is the work of Rupert Lowe. He has developed a large following through his social media skills and especially by holding an Enquiry into the shame of the rape gangs in the UK and promising to follow up with further action. He says he is identifying a “list of rapists, police officers, social workers, council officials, politicians. We will take out private prosecutions and civil litigation”. He says he will run hundreds of candidates at the next election who will not be politicians.
He wants to abolish the asylum system and deport any illegal arrival within 24 hours. Existing illegals will be deported. He wants more to leave than arrive and to cut back severely on legal migration. “Millions must go”. People who refuse to engage or to try to work will lose benefits. He wants to slash taxes on work and enterprise, including ending IR 35 and doubling the VAT threshold. He will back domestic energy production, manufacturing and farming. He wants to assert the Christian culture in Britain under a single law and court system. “Halal and kosher slaughter will be banned on British soil . The burqa will be outlawed”. There are some published back up papers. The one on Deportation for example says there will be “voluntary departures reaching around half a million or more a year driven by a hostile environment, and between 150,000 and 200,000 enforced removals a year”. Restore has recently recruited a group of former Reform Councillors on Reform’s largest Council, Kent County.
All three of these parties have much in common. They all major on migration and all have tougher policies to stop the flow and to remove people already here. Restore is probably the toughest. They all stress Christian culture and wish to be more intolerant of other cultures. They all three say they want to make work pay and to have some tax cuts but none have yet spelled out how they would reduce public spending in practice and in detail to make this feasible. It is likely a General Election is some years away so they have time to work out what they would do. Reform will also have to explain what it has done, as it has won some important Councils where people will now wish to see if they have found better ways to run government and to rein in wasteful and undesirable spending. So far Reform Councils have put up both spending and taxes. On current poll ratings Restore and Advance will be able to say what they wish with no check on their ability to put it into practice. Enjoy your chance here to say what you like and what you dislike about these three similar menus.
February 20, 2026
Ben Habib and Rupert Lowe should reconcile themselves with Reform UK. Fracturing the right in this way serves no useful purpose
February 20, 2026
Three is a lot. The Habib and Lowe parties currently have less recognition at the moment.
The media describe them as either far right, hard right or right wing depending on their own view of politics.
Some seem to me to be primarily anti Nigel Farage parties.
We will see how they all fare. I am not convinced that any of them will address the issues we face effectively if they gain power. Some still await the election of a party that will fix things. We have been let down too often before.
Meanwhile, another weekend approaches and the chance for Trump to attack Iran while the stock markets are closed. I understand Chinese and Russian naval vessels have now been joined by an Indian vessel. BRICS lined up against the hegemon,
February 20, 2026
I listened to a Spectator podcast with Michael Gove (English Cantab) and Toby Young PPE Oxon“We’re we right to lock down” this about a year back. Neither of them (especially Gove) can (even 5 years later) grasp the blindingly obvious. All the lockdowns could ever do was slightly delay infections and perhaps flatten the sombrero slightly as Boris put it. But we always knew that the vast majority of people who were young and fit were never at any real risk so lockdowns were just delaying natural vaccination in 99%+ of the population (& so extending the pandemic) and for the high risk usually very old people perhaps delaying a few deaths or serious illnesses by a month or two at best.
The Great Barrington Declaration people were obviously correct with focussed protection and yet they got trashed by PPE dopes like Brian O’Neil and Hancock using public money it seems. The lockdowns and the unsafe and ineffective Covid “vaccines” cost circa £600bn and both did vast net harms. The politician followed duff experts just as they are doing with Net Zero!
The government could of course easily publish all the the states on the deaths (anonymised) but by vaccination status but they choose to take legal action so as not to have to – which tells us all we need to know. As do figures from Japan etc.
February 20, 2026
Blair and Brown turned the “centre ground” dial very firmly to the Left and created a permanent governance system via International Treaties, an explosion in Quangos stuffed with left-wing activists and by empowering left-wing, activist lawyers and judges. During the following 14 years of government by the Not-a-Conservative-Party, they did absolutely nothing to reverse it and a great deal to reinforce and even extend the leftward turning of the dial.
It is going to be very difficult to undo the damage which 30 years of the left-wing Uni-Party has inflicted on the country and reverse it. Nigel Farage and Reform are trying to very slowly and carefully turn the dial back to the right.
The British electorate has never voted for extremism (excluding the recent Gaza Independents, who in my opinion aren’t really British). The MSM are going to depict Advance and Restore as extremists and although their supporters won’t accept it most voters who aren’t obsessed about politics, still get their information from the MSM and won’t vote for them.
I will be continuing to support Reform and a slow, careful turning of the dial.