The paper says that Donald Trump's behaviour towards Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has dented the appeal of being seen as pro-Trump, and in the past two days, civil war has broken out among Farage’s small group of MPs:
First, Rupert Lowe used an interview with the Daily Mail to accuse his leader of being “messianic”, before the party responded by revealing that Lowe had been reported to the police for making physical threats against Reform’s chairman.
This weekend, Ben Habib, the former co-deputy leader of Reform who was himself ousted by Farage, told the Observer he believed the charges against Lowe were unsubstantiated, and part of a “playbook” used against figures who were no longer in favourin the party.
He said: “Everything was coming to a head with Rupert and this has been contrived to damage him. They have lost someone who is highly regarded by members. This is a very damaging development for Reform, and if Nigel wishes to reverse it, then he needs to embrace Rupert very quickly. He needs to listen to what the criticisms are and address them.”
He said there had been a failure to create a proper structure for the party, with checks and balances where the leadership is held to account, and that unless the changes were made, the party would be unlikely to succeed.
Lowe was dramatically dumped from the parliamentary party on Friday. A statement issued by Reform party chairman Zia Yusuf alleged complaints from two female employees about serious bullying in Lowe’s parliamentary and constituency offices.
The paper quotes party member, Julia Stephenson, who campaigned for Farage in the last election, as saying that the WhatsApp groups of party members are “buzzing with horror” at what had happened:
She said many party members supported Lowe, as well as Habib, who was ousted as co-deputy leader last summer.
Stephenson said she considered the charges against Lowe to be “trumped up” and spiteful, in response to Lowe’s challenge to the party. “Nobody was a bigger fan than me of Nigel Farage, but I think he has been an absolute disgrace,” she said. “He is a disrupter, but he isn’t very good at setting things up.
“Nigel just wants to run a protest party. We have no way of removing him as leader. We only have five MPs and if they can’t get along, how on earth can we run a country?
“He gets a great body of support and just slowly falls out with everybody and loses the best people.”
It seems that Farage and Trump have a lot in common.
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