The Reform schism, which the party’s many establishment detractors hoped would prevent it securing a breakthrough at the local elections, is nearly played out.
A leak to the BBC of private WhatsApp messages from Nigel Farage about Rupert Lowe, apparently designed to put Farage in a bad light, has in my view done just the opposite.
In the messages, which certainly increase suspicions that Lowe was suspended from Reform in part due to a newspaper interview in which he was critical of his party leader, Farage is nonetheless shown to have had one overriding factor in mind: giving his party’s candidates the best platform for winning council seats on 1 May.
In his exchanges with a sympathiser of Lowe, Farage declares: ‘He is damaging the party just before elections.
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