After a torrid summer for Reform UK, the talk among the party's shadowy fixers increasingly centres on one crucial question: is there life after Nigel?
Kemi Badenoch's speech to her party conference earlier this month, in which she said she would never do a deal with 'THAT' – Nigel Farage's party – appears to have given the Tories lift-off.
An Ipsos poll in Saturday's Daily Mail found that she has overturned a huge Reform lead on the issue of who the public regard as the main party of opposition.
The Conservative poll rally, and its implication of a return to two-party politics, has coincided with an increasingly anarchic period for Mr Farage – even by his standards – as he tenses for the results of an investigation by the parliamentary standards commissioner into a £5 million donation from cryptocurrency magnate Christopher Harborne.
It is not just his finances which have come under growing scrutiny. A run of television 'stings' has caught advisers touting for money and councillors expressing racist views, just as lurid gossip is circulating about a senior Reform figure said to be on the brink of exposure over 'inappropriate behaviour' in a club in Mayfair – the affluent London epicentre for Reform's power-brokers.
The combined effect of the multiple crises has been to sap Mr Farage's trademark exuberance and drive, to the extent that he has admitted that his family want him to quit.
Hovering spectre-like over the turmoil is the grinning visage of Great Yarmouth MP Rupert Lowe, who set up the breakaway Restore Britain party after a bitter clash of egos with Mr Farage caused him to quit Reform. Restore has proved to be an extremely effective – possibly existential – form of revenge for Mr Lowe, who has scythed off a chunk of hard-Right supporters from Reform by advocating policies such as the large-scale deportation of people in the UK without legal status, holding a referendum on reinstating the death penalty and banning the burka.
Electoral modelling suggests that if Mr Farage resigned as leader, Reform's support would drop from its current position in the low 20s to the mid teens, while Restore would rise to 8 per cent or above, enabling the Tories to enjoy an unchallenged lead as the main opposition to Labour.
Hovering spectre-like over the turmoil is the grinning visage of Great Yarmouth MP Rupert Lowe (right), who set up the breakaway Restore Britain party after a bitter clash of egos with Mr Farage caused him to quit Reform
Sources claim that Mr Lowe has used a series of recent dinners to suggest that Mr Farage will soon leave his position – and to imply that he could engineer a 'reverse takeover' of Reform, or at least act as kingmaker in the battle to succeed Mr Farage.
When asked about the claim last night, Mr Lowe said: 'Who told you that? Non-story'.
For his part, Mr Farage knows that the 'Lowe issue' needs to be resolved if he is ever to be in a position to win the next election. But his 'Byzantine' court of advisers are divided over whether to use the carrot or the stick.
The pro-carrot camp argue that the strategy of whacking Restore only appears to have increased the party's profile and support, which has snowballed on the back of anti-immigration social media posts.
They say Mr Lowe should be offered a path back into the party, and be presented with a 'sacrifice' in the form of the removal of Zia Yusuf, Reform's divisive home affairs spokesman, who was at the centre of the drive to kick Mr Lowe out over HR complaints by staff. A source said: 'Nigel is good at starting feuds, but he is also good at patching them up. Zia would be a worthwhile sacrifice to get Rupert back.'
However, other sources say that Mr Yusuf 'has Nigel over a barrel' because he has control of the seat-by-seat data crucial to the next general election – which many senior figures in the party fear could be called by Prime Minister Andy Burnham at any moment.
Another source dismissed the idea of extending an olive branch to Mr Lowe, saying: 'Restore is just a rebadged [far-Right] BNP.
'Lowe is weak, and seems unaware of much of what is going on. He is not in control and just lets other people around him run the show by Zoom.
'It is basically a digital party but it has no actual presence in real life. Lowe spends his life in White's and Boodle's [elite, Conservative-linked members clubs] with Tory figures and has very little to do with Restore.
Electoral modelling suggests that if Mr Farage resigned as leader, Reform's support would drop from its current position in the low 20s to the mid teens, while Restore would rise to 8 per cent or above
'We think he is just angling for a Tory peerage as a thank-you for splitting Reform.'
Mr Lowe hit back, pointing to one poll last week which put Restore on 8 per cent already. He said: 'I am entirely uninterested in such tedious Westminster gossip. My sole aim is building a party capable of winning a general election. Restore Britain has just hit 8 per cent and we will not stop there'.
The figure identified as being at the centre of the allegedly inappropriate behaviour in Mayfair last night denied to The Mail on Sunday that they had retained lawyers over the issue – and, ironically, threatened to sue if it was suggested otherwise.