Reform UK was in meltdown last night after the party revealed it had stripped the whip from Rupert Lowe, one of its five MPs, amid allegations of bullying staff and violent threats. The Mail has more.
In an explosive statement, party Chairman Zia Yusuf and Chief Whip Lee Anderson said Rupert Lowe was being investigated over complaints by two female employees.
They also said the Great Yarmouth MP – who will now sit in the House of Commons as an independent MP after having the Reform whip withdrawn – had been reported to police over astonishing allegations he physically threatened Mr Yusuf.
But Mr Lowe immediately hit back at the party’s “untrue and false” claims and said he had been “knifed” for publicly questioning Nigel Farage’s leadership of Reform.
He also denied the party’s suggestion he was refusing to cooperate with the bullying probe, which is said to involve “derogatory and discriminatory remarks”.
An independent KC has been drafted in to look at the “veracity” of the allegations, but Mr Lowe dismissed it as a “minor staff matter” based on “zero credible evidence”.
He railed against the party’s “vexatious” statement, issued shortly after 5pm on Friday evening, and said he would be seeking “legal advice immediately”.
In a lengthy rebuttal to Reform’s statement, the MP said it was “no surprise” party bosses had publicly revealed the bullying probe just a day after he clashed with Mr Farage.
“The day after, I find a knife in my back over false allegations. Whip suspended. That tells you everything you need to know,” Mr Lowe fumed on social media.
In an interview with the Daily Mail on Thursday, Mr Lowe had openly questioned Mr Farage’s leadership and accused him of acting like a “messiah”.
The businessman-turned-politician, a former Chairman of Southampton Football Club, bemoaned his leader’s tight grip on the party and even floated the possibility of him replacing Mr Farage.
But Mr Farage branded the comments as “completely wrong” and swiped that Mr Lowe wouldn’t have had a “cat’s chance in hell” of becoming an MP without him.
The statement from Mr Yusuf and Mr Anderson said: “It is with regret that we feel obligated to disclose that the party received complaints from two female employees about serious bullying in the offices of the MP for Great Yarmouth, Rupert Lowe.
“One worked in his Parliamentary office, the other in his constituency office, we understand complaints have been made to parliamentary authorities.
“Evidence was provided to us of workplace bullying, the targeting of female staff who raised concerns, and evidence of derogatory and discriminatory remarks made about women, including reference to a perceived disability.
“We feel we have a duty of care to all our staff, whether employed directly or indirectly.
“Accordingly, we appointed an independent King’s Counsel to conduct an investigation into the veracity of these complaints. To date, Mr Lowe has yet to cooperate with this investigation.
“In addition to these allegations of a disturbing pattern of behaviour, Mr Lowe has on at least two occasions made threats of physical violence against our party Chairman.
“Accordingly, this matter is with the police. Reform stands for the highest standards of conduct in public life, and we will apply these standards without fear nor favour, including within our own party.”
A Reform UK spokesman later confirmed that Mr Lowe “has had the whip withdrawn”.
Soon after the party’s statement was issued, the Great Yarmouth MP issued a lengthy response on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter.
Worth reading in full, and read Rupert’s response to the allegations here.
Stop Press: Reform “cannot function” with Rupert Lowe as one of the party’s MPs, its chief whip Lee Anderson has said. The Telegraph has more.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
“covid ravaged care homes”. That should be neglect ravaged “care” homes. These care providers need to develop a spine and tell the government where to shove their “vaccine” mandate.
My sister-in-law, a qualified nurse, had worked at the same care home for seventeen years. In April she and three other care staff resigned on the same day, due to the owners introducing their own vaccine mandate. Since then the government has shoved its big fat nose into the sector and will no doubt be making a bad situation worse.
Indeed, that is the only viable response.
If Care Homes don’t refuse the industry will collapse anyway. Of course this has always been part of the plan. The devastation in the wider population as care homes start to close for good will be immense.
Possibly some might, but I suspect that many are terrified of the prospect of losing any insurance cover or being sued to bankruptcy by the usual flocks of ambulance-chasing legal vultures.
Raided Veteran’s PTSD Camp: Police Put A Gun To A Baby’s Head
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtA_–iA7JE
Stand in South Hill Park Bracknell every Sunday from 10am meet fellow anti lockdown freedom lovers, keep yourself sane, make new friends and have a laugh.
(also Wednesdays from 2pm)
Join our Stand in the Park – Bracknell – Telegram Group
http://t.me/astandintheparkbracknell
I’m sure that’s true. But we know the “vaccines” don’t work anyway, and staff will still test positive (as many vaccinated people are doing now). And the deaths of elderly residents will still be classed as covid deaths even if they’re not, by lazy, frightened GPs who haven’t even clapped eyes on the patient. I doubt any lessons will have been learned from lockdowns #1 and #2.
It’s not that lessons aren’t been learned. It’s that the same people with the same agenda are still running our show.
So, mandatory jabbing for the relatives then?
Oh yes. And will they be paid for their services? Or get a discount on care home fees? Doubt it.
Indeed they should be! It would be a turn up to be allowed more that a 45 minute visit anyway.
Just say no.
Template letters, information, resources, positive news and useful links: https://www.LCAHub.org/
I’m going to say a dreadful thing.
I’m glad my father’s dead.
I’m glad, because he spent his last two years in a care home that was as good as a care home can be, and it was still bloody awful.
The thought of him in a short-staffed killing home is so utterly, utterly dreadful that the reality would have driven me mad.
Because it would be no use my volunteering to help out, would it? Better for them to watch my father dying amidst neglect and chaos than to allow an unvaxxer near him.
If you have a God, pray hard for the victims of this savagery,
I felt the same about my father, who fortunately died before this shitshow began. It would have killed my mother not to have been able to visit him and knowing he was being neglected by a skeleton staff, PPE’d up to the max.
I’m sorry about your experience with your father. But if his care was ‘bloody awful’, then it wasn’t ‘as good as a care home can be’, speaking from my personal knowledge.
And that is the point – this sort of provision is demanding at the best of times, and depends upon the skills of the staff and management. If the government goes poncing around with this idiocy, it can only make the achievement of high standards more and more difficult.
It would be bad enough even if the clams about the snake oil were based in reality. Given the known problems with provision, the only rational conclusion is that the government are intent on destroying the sector and forcing care responsibility back onto relatives.
It wasn’t the staff’s fault really. He was in the dementia wing with other demented people (much worse than he was), and that’s what convinced me that dementia is worse than death. The staff were in an impossible situation.
What it’s lime now I really, really can’t bear to imagine.
The owners of care homes will appreciate some free labour. Just as firms appreciate those working-from-home saving on their office costs, all that electricity and water…
Just as the councils welcome all the people litter-picking….
You mean the residents’ families who weren’t allowed to see their loved one’s for 18 months?
During the first lockdown, the care package providers for my m-i-l told us that if the family continued to visit her at home then they would withdraw the care package for her. This was in spite of the fact that we were following the government guidelines on supporting vulnerable people (and even wearing masks). As a result, we didn’t see my m-i-l for six weeks. The care providers then experienced a staffing problem so we were called in to help put my m-i-l to bed at night. One day we were called to ask if we could help get her up at 7 o’clock the next morning.
It appears that the rules could be ignored when it suited.
Yes, but if the relatives haven’t been double jabbed themselves, they won’t be able to contribute voluntary care, will they?
Well thats another way of achieving the world Governments aim of reducing the population. Well done to Boris Johnson and all his supporters
vaccine mandates are irrelevant not least because the vaccines don’t stop people catching and spreading the virus. why not just sanitise the air within the care homes with UV, heat treatment or other within the ventilation ducting – no viral load = no spread
Oh and give the inmates ivermectin or HCQ or whatever protection treatments recommended by real doctors like Kory or McCullough – for more effective than the theatre of ineffective but ”look we are doing something” vax mandates
sanitised air = no/low viral load build up
Because more would live?
This presupposes that the relatives will all be double vaccinated though.
How is that going to work?
I bet almost all have been forced into that already.
The huge rise in deaths at home running for many months now suggests
i. More people choosing to die at home of terminal diseases because of the heartless rules in homes and hospices.
ii. More keeping the elderly at home until it is absolutely impossible to continue, or eschewing homes entirely because of heartless rules there.
iii. A possible/probable link to jab linked heart events, mirrored in the rise of ambulance call outs for heart attacks. It is going to be interesting to see what rises in which conditions have happened over the year ending when jabs began.
iv Perhaps suicides, though inquests lag badly and that’s more doubtful.
If the government wanted to help it could offer to pay the heating bills for all care homes, and for all old folks, over the next winter, thus allowing them to keep the windows open to ensure adequate ventilation. But I guess that’s too simple for them.
Bit of a CO2 emissions dilemma for them there.