Rupert Lowe is sure that people can be deterred from getting into dangerous boats (Image: Tim Merry/Staff Photographer)
Britain could stop illegal immigration in just three months with tough and determined action, according to Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe.
The former football chairman who has won the praise of is confident that migrants can be deterred from making the dangerous journey – but he is sure the crisis will not have ended by the time of the next election.
“If people come here illegally they need to be detained and deported,” he says, adding: “Do that for three months, you will stop illegal immigration.
“People won’t spend 5,000 euros or whatever it is coming over on a rickety dinghy.”
He also wants foreign criminals sent “back from where they came from” – and he knows how he would compel their home nations to take them back.
“If we’re sending foreign aid to the countries and they refuse to accept them, withdraw the foreign aid.”
He says there is “absolutely no chance” Labour will tackle the small boats crisis in the years leading up to polling day. But he insists he now believes Reform will win that election.
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Mr Lowe knows what it is like to take a team to the cusp of victory. When he was chairman of Southampton FC the Saints reached the FA Cup Final in 2003.
He remembers it as one of the best days of his life – but Arsenal won the match 1-0.
Now, the 67-year-old is at the heart of a five-strong squad of Reform MPs who have won a bridgehead in Westminster. This is just the beginning, he says, insisting that the insurgent party will triumph at the next election.
“We’re going to win,” he says.
An overall majority is the goal and there are clear reasons why his confidence is surging.
First, he startled his friends by winning Great Yarmouth from the in the summer election. Then the world’s richest man, , declared on his social network, X, that Mr Lowe talks “a lot of sense”.
And now recent opinion polls have put Reform above both Labour and the .
Mr Lowe fears for the future of the UK under Labour, warning of a looming “sterling crisis”.
He blasts the Government for hitting farmers with inheritance tax, warning: “They will sell their machinery; you will get no investment in farming; we will become more and more exposed to food shortages… When sterling collapses we won’t be able to import other people’s food.”
And he condemns the hike in employers’ National Insurance contributions.
“You’re going to see people getting rid of staff,” he says, adding: “These people are scoring own-goals everywhere.”
He is bemused by Sir ’s push for a “reset” of relations with the .
Warning that going back to this “failing socialist post-war experiment” would be a “disaster”, he says: “I can’t for the life of me understand what he’s got in his head other than rocks.”
Rupert Lowe is one of five Reform MPs (Image: Tim Merry/Staff Photographer)
From the football terraces to the Commons benches
Ruper Lowe does not hide his business success. The MP donates his net salary to causes he supports in his Great Yarmouth constituency.He was educated at Radley College and earned a living in the City but for decades he has been ready to challenge the establishment.In 1997 he stood for Sir James Goldsmith’s Referendum Party in a bid to secure a vote on Britain’s membership of the European Union. And in 2019 he won a seat in the European Parliament for the Brexit Party.He still had a taste for politics once Britain had left the EU and stood for Reform UK in last year’s Kingswood by-election. He had better luck in the general election, pushing the Conservatives into third place and securing a majority of 1,426.Outside politics, he is best known for his time as chairman of Southampton FC. He resigned in 2006 after a decade in post but returned from 2008 to 2009.“Football is a tough experience but a great way to live your life if you’re a sportsman,” he says.The father of four is married to a journalist, Nicky, and has a farm near Cheltenham which is the base for National Hunt trainer Fergal O’Brien.
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He shows a similar lack of enthusiasm when discussing the potential for a pact with the .
Pointing to ’s decision not to stand Party candidates in Conservative-held seats and ’s subsequent 80-seat majority, he says: “Tell me what he did with it… He didn’t even do well.”
He would not rejoice if Mr Johnson decided to join the ranks of Reform, describing the ex-PM as an “abject failure”.
“I think it is extraordinary that Boris is still in the betting to be the next prime minister,” he says. “It’s bizarre. He’s had a play with the toy set and he singularly failed.”
But when he talks about the grassroots support for Reform that propelled him to the Commons he glows with excitement.
“We’ve got to encourage the population to start challenging all of the fetters and the oppression that is being put upon them by people who are supposed to be serving them,” he says. “I say, challenge, challenge, challenge – obviously legally.”
Boris Johnson has been savaged by Rupert Lowe (Image: Getty)
A Kemi purge
Kemi Badenoch must lead a purge of the Conservatives to stand a chance of resurrecting her party’s fortunes, according to Rupert Lowe.
He claims the Conservatives have been infiltrated by members who would be more at home sitting with the Liberal Democrats.
“Their selection processes mean a lot of their candidates aren’t Tories, they are Lib Dems,” he says. “A lot of their MPs in Parliament are not what I would describe as true Tories.
“I think Kemi’s got to sort out Tory party head office… And that means probably culling quite a few people.
“And I think she’s got to give the bad news to her MPs who are currently in the House who aren’t Tories and tell them they are being replaced at the next election. Maybe she’s then got a chance but that’s going to make her pretty unpopular with her own party, so do I think she can do that? Probably not.”
French police as a dinghy sets off from France to the UK (Image: Getty)
The Home Office insists it is working to stop the small boats crisis.
A spokesperson said: “We all want to end dangerous small boat crossings, which threaten lives and undermine our border security. The people-smuggling gangs do not care if the vulnerable people they exploit live or die, as long as they pay. We will stop at nothing to dismantle their business models and bring them to justice.”
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp condemned the Labour Government for scrapping the Conservative scheme to send illegal migrants to Rwanda.
He said: “I think that plan would have worked because you wouldn’t bother crossing from France to the UK if you knew you had a high chance of being sent to Rwanda… It was a catastrophic mistake that the Labour Government cancelled that Rwanda scheme before it even started.
“The first plane was due to take off on July 24 but they cancelled it before it went. If the get back into power we will definitely be looking to implement a removals deterrent where illegal immigrants who arrive here get rapidly removed either to their country of origin or to a safe third country, whether that’s Rwanda or somewhere else.”