Member of Parliament Rupert Lowe has alleged that campaigners for his Restore Britain party came under attack by supposed anti-racist protesters while leafleting for the upcoming special by-election to replace former Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer in the House of Commons.
Lowe said that while campaigning for London-based lawyer Tyler Johnson in the London constituency of Holborn and St Pancras on Saturday for next month’s election, members of his party’s campaign team were attacked, resulting in a campaigner being hospitalised. The Great Yarmouth MP added that police were involved.
According to London’s Daily Telegraph, Restore said that their campaigner was accosted with scalding hot coffee.
The leftist Stand Up to Racism group said that Lowe and Restore were “trying to play victim”. The group has denied attacking members of the Restore campaign team, but said that they “confronted” alleged “neo-Nazi Restore activists”.
“Racists and fascists aren’t welcome in Camden, or anywhere else. We will and a confront fascists wherever they appear,” the group said in a statement.
At the time of this reporting, the Metropolitan Police have yet to confirm any details of the incident. At present, neither Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch nor Labour Prime Minister Andy Burnham have commented on the alleged attack.
However, the incident did draw condemnation from leading figures from Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, including Shadow Home Secretary Zia Yusuf, who has infamously clashed with Lowe, including by accusing his former ally of threatening him with violence while Lowe was still a member of Reform. Lowe denied the allegations.
Nevertheless, Yusuf said on Saturday: ” If a political party cannot deliver leaflets in a parliamentary by-election without a crazed mob attacking them, we do not have a democracy.
“Make no mistake, these far left mobs – and the foreign actors funding them – will face an almighty reckoning under a Reform government.”
Prominent Reform supporter, Professor Matt Goodwin added: “Left-wing extremists routinely harass, abuse, and attack patriots and yet Westminster says nothing.”
“And now, after Ann Widdecombe, we hear that patriotic activists have been assaulted on London’s streets. If this was the other way around we would never hear the end of it.
“There should be NO place for political violence and harassment in our democracy. We shall wait for Labour and Green politicians to condemn the violence but I suspect we will be waiting a very long time.”
For his part, Restore Britain party leader Rupert Lowe called on the media and political establishment to “ease off on their rhetoric” about his party, arguing that by referring to Restore as Nazis is “evidently riling up these wild mobs.”
“Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, should be physically attacked in the street for peacefully campaigning. This has to end,” he said.
Challenge our ideas, criticise our policies, debate us on our platform,” Lowe urged. “Pushing for mass deportations is mainstream politics, backed by millions and millions of Brits. That is NOT ‘nazism’.”