On 13th February, a new political party was launched. It’s hard to say yet whether it blazed onto the scene or merely ambled onto stage.

Rupert Lowe, the erstwhile Reform MP, announced that his Restore Britain organisation would transform itself into a political party. He did so from a drab, unadorned stage at a theatre on the pier in his Great Yarmouth constituency. By Lowe’s own admission, the conditions were so icy that he contemplated delivering his remarks in his overcoat.

A pretty good audience (of what looked like a few hundred) turned up for the event – one presumes these were largely his own constituents, but some hardy souls travelled from many miles away to be there.

Lowe’s proposition in both his speech that night and in his promotional launch video is striking. Without specifically using the words, he essentially echoed Elon Musk’s view that Reform UK amounts to “weak sauce”.

That’s right, we now have a new political party with representation in the House of Commons the central proposition of which is that Nigel Farage is far too much of a lily livered moderate.

Coverage in the mainstream media was, to put it kindly, muted. However, that is perhaps to be expected if you make your big announcement on a Friday evening in a venue that takes three hours to get to from London.

The online picture is very different though – across social media Rupert Lowe has a huge presence. His launch video on X has chalked up more than forty million views. Some YouTube channels which form part of the so-called “online right” are not merely enthusiastic about Lowe’s new project – they are positively smitten by it. See just one example here.

In the space of just over a week, Restore Britain now claims to have more members than the Liberal Democrats. A smattering of local councillors (typically disenchanted Reformers) has also joined Lowe’s new outfit.

What seems less clear is whether a party of this type can gain any traction amongst the public. Is there really a sizable bloc of voters out there who are deeply concerned about mass migration, infuriated by the power of the Blob, enraged by ludicrous wokery and opposed to the insanity of carbon net zero and yet consider Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch to be wet centrists?

One poll – commissioned for Restore Britain – suggested national support for the new party at 10%. But the survey specifically prompted for Lowe’s party in the question asked. Other polls this week have not yet detected meaningful levels of support, although a small sample survey in Great Yarmouth suggests Rupert Lowe would hold his seat against all comers.

However, even if Restore fails to break through in a serious way in the polls, it is likely to deploy measurable numbers of activists and meaningful sums of money which – in an alternative universe – would be directed to supporting Badenoch’s Tories or Farage’s Reformers.

One theory is that Rupert Lowe’s new party could end up assisting Reform. Nigel Farage has been assiduous in keeping extremists out of Reform UK. Tommy Robinson is not merely kept at arm’s length – he and his supporters are wholly excluded. Any racists who do infiltrate Reform are swiftly expelled. Farage might well be pursuing a strategy of “triangulation”. He may conclude that if he is to take his party still higher in the polls, he needs to attract voters who worry Reform is too extreme and not mainstream enough. If, metaphorically, he is able to say that his party is, “Nothing like those extreme loonies over there”, then perhaps he can take Reform still higher in the polls.

This may lead to the party taking less radical policy positions. At the unveiling of some senior appointments this week, Shadow Chancellor Robert Jenrick announced – to my considerable disappointment – that he would rather reform and retain the OBR than abolish it. The Goldilocks strategy of having a manifesto that is not too hot, not too cold but just right could be a smart one as long as it doesn’t leave a vast swathe of people feeling that you are simply offering something disappointingly tepid.

Kemi Badenoch’s Conservative strategy is not dissimilar. She is seeking to portray the Tories as the serious, rather than screamy, option to reset Britain and this does seem to have stabilised Conservative support in the polls (albeit only in the high teens).

Annoyingly, there are now two contradictory forces on the right of British politics. Whether one supports the Conservatives, Reform or Restore, there is the semblance of an agreed policy agenda. We need to leave the ECHR and overhaul our domestic judicial settings to get immigration under control; the bloated bureaucracy that governs Britain needs to be tackled and radically reduced; the carbon net zero strategy is unilateral economic disarmament and needs to be abandoned; British traditions and values need to be promoted and celebrated rather than apologised for. There are the beginnings at least of some sort of common platform, even if there are differences over degree, speed and prioritisation. Intellectually, the right-of-centre of British politics is surprisingly united.

Electorally though, the division is extraordinary and unprecedented. This is exacerbated by the fact that the leading lights in different political parties of the right do not have the most convivial of relationships – to put it mildly.

My hope remains that if we can get unity around ideas and policies then the means of delivering electoral victory will ultimately become obvious. The more we can discuss concepts and solutions rather than personalities, the more likely it is that this hope will prevail.

Keep the flag of freedom flying!