IT IS tempting to dismiss the row splitting the hard-right Reform Party as political slapstick.
A cast of unlovely characters are publicly slagging each other off, amidst allegations of threats, misbehaviour and warnings of legal action.
Certainly, the prospect of party leader and owner Nigel Farage and rebel MP Rupert Lowe squaring off in court should cheer any democrat.
However, there are serious issues at stake in the developing split, which could end up with two, three or even four political parties fighting over the hard-right turf.
For one thing, Reform is on its way to becoming the main political party on the right across Britain.
It outpolls the Tories in every survey, and claims a far larger mass membership of around 200,000.
It only secured five seats at the general election — now down to four with Lowe’s departure — but scant parliamentary representation has not impeded its rise in public support.
Were that to fragment, it would be to the immediate benefit of the Tories. The party is existentially threatened by Reform’s rise, which is mainly at the expense of the Conservative voter base.
Kemi Badenoch has positioned the Tories very close to Reform in both policy and rhetoric making the Conservatives hard-right party number two.
For Lowe, Reform is not right-wing enough. He not only wants to control migration, but to deport up to a million migrants already here.
He also appears more indulgent of jailed far-right provocateur Tommy Robinson than Farage does.
These positions appear to have commended themselves to Trumpian billionaire Elon Musk.
When he takes time out from eviscerating the US government, he has tweeted support for Lowe, and suggested he would make a better leader than Farage.
Undoubtedly that has turned Lowe’s head — where everyone else sees a mean-faced second-rate businessman, he himself looks in the mirror and beholds the next Prime Minister.
That has raised the possibility of Musk’s limitless millions being thrown behind a new party Lowe might launch, together with other dissidents estranged from Farage, cash dangled enticingly before Reform by Musk before being apparently snatched away.
That would surely turbo-charge Lowe’s ambitions, but would scarcely allow him to eclipse Farage, whose public resonance and media profile ensures his continued dominance.
But even the prospect of a third party of the right alongside the Conservatives and Reform does not exhaust the possibilities.
There is already the Reclaim party, launched by indifferent actor Laurence Fox in 2020 with a particular culture war focus. It too has a millionaire sponsor, if not in the Musk league — businessman Jeremy Hosking.
Hosking appears to be Reclaim’s sole funder, so his suggestion that Lowe join forces with Fox has cash behind it.
Whether a party could survive two personalities with such a taste for drama as Fox and Lowe is debatable, but Reclaim has a record of collaboration with Reform and briefly had its own MP, ex-Tory Andrew Bridgen, who served as Fox’s parliamentary representative for a few months in 2023.
How all this shakes down will doubtless become clear before long. But alarm bells should already be sounding at the latest intervention in British politics by Musk, who appears intent on buying influence in our politics by one channel or another and using it to shift policy rightwards.
Prohibiting such unwelcome interference by foreign businessmen should be a democratic priority, yet Keir Starmer appears paralysed. Indeed, he too is trying to appease potential Reform voters on a range of issues.
All opponents of the far right should mobilise to keep Musk’s cash out of Britain and demand that Labour acts to defend democracy.
