The simmering divisions within Britain's right-wing media have boiled over into all-out war with the high-profile attack by the Mail on Sunday on Restore Britain, a party even more extreme than Nigel Farage's Reform UK. In a scathing editorial, the Mail branded Restore as "the new home for neo-Nazis", sparking a fierce backlash from the party's leader, Rupert Lowe.
The controversy stems from comments made by Lowe, who stated that it was "up to him" whether far-right activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (known as Tommy Robinson) wanted to join the party. This perceived openness to extremist groups has infuriated the Mail titles, which have long been associated with conservative values.
Yet the Restore Britain party is no laughing matter – its stance on deporting "millions and millions" of people from the UK is even more draconian than Reform's, leading some within Reform UK to believe that it could split the right-wing vote in key by-elections like Makerfield. This is precisely what has sparked the Mail titles' aggressive campaign against Restore Britain.
The Telegraph, on the other hand, has taken a different tack, publishing a full-page interview with Lowe during the same weekend. In the feature, Lowe attacked "woke creeps" who oppose his party's hardline stance on immigration. The Telegraph's own shift to the right since the Brexit referendum has been well-documented, and its future direction under new German media owner Axel Springer is a subject of intense scrutiny – particularly given the owner's other titles featuring opinion pieces by figures like Elon Musk and Viktor Orbán.
According to Steven Barnett, Professor of Communications at the University of Westminster, "decades of essentially right-of-centre UK press and proprietors backing the Conservative party" are now under threat. The fracturing of this right-wing consensus presents a significant challenge for the Conservative party, which must navigate this treacherous terrain in the face of increasingly polarised politics.
The immediate catalyst for the Mail's strong endorsement of Reform over Restore is understood to be the Makerfield by-election, where Andy Burnham is favourite to win and potentially challenge Sir Keir Starmer for the Labour leadership. Reform UK is his main challenger, and a split right-wing vote could influence the outcome.