REFORM UK (BARNET)

Rupert Lowe was a Brexit Party MEP for the West Midlands. But he withdrew as the party’s parliamentary candidate for the marginal Dudley seat in November 2019, the day of the nomination deadline. Why? Rupert had been dead keen on sitting in Parliament, and by all accounts he stood a fairly decent chance. But something weird happened in the weeks running up to that bizarre decision to withdraw on deadline day itself, which meant no alternate candidate could be submitted. He threw the race. In football terms, it was match fixing. But what possessed him, and does that same thing possess him now? In the run-up to that decision, a man by the name of Dougie Smith had been in touch with Lowe. It’s not known how long for. But the communication intensified in that period. Smith — who likes to be called “the wolf” and is known in the media as “Dr. No” because they’re afraid of naming him — has been a long time dark arts fixer for the Tory party. He ran Boris Johnson. He worked for Cameron. He ran Sunak. And he’s now in charge of Kemi Badenoch and Kevin Hollinrake. In fact, Dougie even introduced Kemi to her husband Hamish, in a little-known fact they’ve tried to keep quiet. And with good reason: Smith is a long-time sex party organizer. Just ask Michael Gove. Smith ran orgies for high-profile people, including many politicians, in the 90s and 2000s. So there’s lots of kompromat. But back to Lowe. Remember, this was 2019. It would be at least 5 more years until the big Farage fallout that caused Restore Britain to arrive on the scene and do precisely what Rupert claimed he didn’t want to do in that Dudley election: “split the vote.” At the time, in 2019, Farage called what Lowe did “disgusting behaviour” and said it was a double-cross of then Brexit Party leader Richard Tice. Lowe is believed to have met a senior Tory official that week, and his withdrawal had been arranged with the Conservatives. This episode sat within a wider set of claims by Farage about Conservative efforts to clear the field in key seats. Apparently, Rupert wasn’t the only target of this op. But he appears to have been the longest-running asset of Dougie Smith. You would recognise other names, too. But that’s for another time. Farage called out Dougie Smith as one of the figures involved in approaches to Brexit Party candidates that mixed inducements (the offer of peerages, jobs, and even a suggested knighthood) with pressure and intimidation. The latter being Smith’s forte. One account, reproduced in screenshots shared online, asserts that Lowe met Smith privately at a DoubleTree Hilton in London at 4:30 p.m. on 14 November and that the two men collaborated on a “Men and Measures” list mapping out Tory safe seats, peerages, or other positions for Brexit Party figures willing to stand down in favour of the Conservatives. This is precisely what Restore Britain has now been doing at a council level around the country. Men and Measures 2.0. And it makes even more sense when you consider the Dougie Smith-era Tories who are now working inside Restore Britain. Men like Scott Benton, who was also elected for the Tories in 2019. To this day, the Men and Measures playbook is being run. Where Tories stand to win at a council level, Restore Britain activists are pulled back, and candidates often not stood at all. If Reform are standing to win where the Tories can, Restore Britain floods the zone as hard as it can. Now these could all just be a massive series of coincidences. But add to it Lowe’s own words about the Tory party, and how he repeatedly refuses to say anything negative about Kemi Badenoch, despite most of his base blasting her as an “anchor baby.” “I could join the Tories tomorrow if I wanted to,” he told Newsnight in early 2025. “I don’t have an issue with the Tories.” That’s true. He doesn’t have an issue with the Tories. Because they control him. He’s the man. They’ve got the measures. And Dougie Smith is pulling the puppet strings.