Fewer than one-in-10 British voters can identify Great Yarmouth MP Rupert Lowe, a new poll conducted exclusively for GB News has revealed.
Polling firm JL Partners found Mr Lowe’s visibility has dropped from 14 per cent to just eight per cent in the 10 months after his expulsion from Reform UK in March 2025.
Reform UK voters also struggled to correctly identify Mr Lowe when shown a picture of the former Brexit Party MEP, with the proportion jumping from 71 per cent unable to name the Restore Britain leader last March to 86 per cent.
The new polling, which included a representative sample of 2,242 UK adults, was released just days after Mr Lowe launched a new right-wing political party to challenge Reform UK.
JL Partners co-founder Tom Lubbock told GB News: “Rupert Lowe just isn’t a well-known figure with the British public.
“When we polled a representative sample of the public, 86 per cent couldn’t name him when shown a picture.
“If you look outside of those who pay lots of attention to politics, that number goes up to over 90 per cent who couldn’t identify Rupert Lowe.
“That compares to just 17 per cent of the public who couldn’t correctly name Nigel Farage when shown a picture.”
The polling from JL Partners will come as a blow to Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain
|
PA
Meanwhile, Nigel Farage is among the most identifiable political figures in Britain, with 76 per cent of the voters correctly identifying the Reform UK leader, including 86 per cent of 2024 Reform UK voters.
JL Partners polling was released shortly after a Find Out Now survey, which was commissioned by Restore Britain, suggested Rupert Lowe’s new party could receive 10 per cent of the vote.
After initially setting up Restore Britain as a “political movement”, Mr Lowe held an event in Great Yarmouth on Friday night to announce the launch of a “national political party”.
However, it has since emerged that Restore Britain will operate as an umbrella party, providing support to local political parties, including Great Yarmouth First.
Nigel Farage took a swipe at Rupert Lowe after unveiling key members of his Shadow Cabinet
|
PA
Mr Lowe also finds himself in a difficult position with ex-Reform UK deputy leader Ben Habib, with both men opening the door to closer ties between Restore Britain and Advance UK.
JL Partners found that Mr Habib’s public visibility is even lower than Mr Lowe’s eight per cent score.
Mr Habib, who finished in a distant third in Wellingborough & Rushden in the 2024 General Election, is known by just four per cent of British voters.
The figure is only marginally higher among Reform UK voters at eight per cent.
Ben Habib’s public visibility score was even lower than Rupert Lowe’s
|
GETTY
During today’s Reform UK “Shadow Cabinet” press conference, Mr Farage took aim at Mr Lowe’s efforts to create yet another right-wing party.
“There are, last time we counted, 11 parties that claim to be on the right or centre-right of British politics, from the Heritage Party to goodness knows who else,” the Reform UK leader said.
“There is only one proper band of centre-right politics in this country; it’s called Reform.
“People think, ‘Oh, Farage has done it; we’ll just set a party up, it’ll be marvellous, we’ll sweep the next election’.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage dismissed the threat from Rupert Lowe this morning
|
PA
“It just isn’t as easy as that. Does he have a profile on X? Yes, he does. Is Elon [Musk] going to support him? Probably.
“But you see, when he stood up and said, ‘We’ve got to consider the mass deportation of entire communities, including those born in the United Kingdom,’ that just moves beyond the point of reasonableness, decency, morality.”
Mr Farage, who rejected the suggestion he was formerly “friends” with Mr Lowe, also suggested the JL Partners poll would leave Mr Lowe’s national support as low as one per cent.
“He won’t be on one per cent [vote share] anywhere,” Mr Farage said. “Not even, probably, in Great Yarmouth.”
Meanwhile, Mr Habib has also consistently taken aim at Reform UK after he was demoted from his role of deputy leader to make way for Richard Tice.
Mr Lowe received 35.3 per cent of the vote as Reform UK’s candidate in the Norfolk constituency, edging out Labour’s Keir Cozens by just 1,426 votes.
He was suspended and later expelled from Reform UK after being accused of making “verbal threats” towards Mr Farage’s close ally, Zia Yusuf.
Reform UK also claimed it had received evidence of “serious bullying” and “derogatory” remarks made about women in the MP’s officers, with two separate staffers being said to have complained about their treatment.
Mr Lowe, who dismissed the allegations as “vexatious”, later said that Mr Farage “must never become Prime Minister”.