Nigel Farage has announced that more than two-dozen councillors across the country have defected to Reform UK, as he attempts to put a bust-up in his parliamentary ranks behind him.
The Reform leader said the fallout with MP Rupert Lowe had caused “some consternation”, but insisted “that upset is very much at the edges”, and suggested a report into allegations about the MP could be completed this week.
Mr Lowe, the 67-year-old MP for Great Yarmouth, was suspended by Reform UK amid allegations about his conduct, which he has strenuously denied.
Rupert Lowe’s whip has been suspended (Jordan Pettitt/PA)
The Metropolitan Police has also launched an investigation into “verbal threats” allegedly made by Mr Lowe.
Mr Farage announced more than two dozen councillors had joined the party during the period of “turbulence”, with defections from the Tories and the Liberal Democrats.
“Today, I am going to show you the extent to which we are broadening and deepening the party across the country,” he said.
“In the last two weeks, we’ve not been obsessing about what’s being written in the papers, or being said online.
“We’ve been getting on with the job.”
Nigel Farage insisted he would not allow ‘consternation’ in his parliamentary party to derail Reform UK’s momentum (Lucy North/PA)
Addressing the clash with Mr Lowe, the Reform leader added: “You might have noticed that we have been through a little bit of turbulence over the course of the last couple of weeks.
“We’ve been increasingly concerned about the behaviour of one of our Members of Parliament, and when we found out that some serious complaints have gone in, we thought, you know what, let’s just suspend the whip and let’s find out what the truth is, and we will wait… we will get the report from the independent King’s Council.”
Mr Farage said he did not “know exactly when that’s going to be” but that “it might happen during the course of this week”.
He added: “Has it caused some consternation? Of course it has – any argument that’s seen to happen within the family does, but I can promise you that in terms of our progress and our planning, that upset is very much at the edges.”