# Rupert Lowe

Rupert James Graham Lowe (born 31 October 1957) is a British politician serving as Member of Parliament (MP) for Great Yarmouth since 2024. Initially elected as a candidate for Reform UK, he currently sits as an independent following the suspension of the party whip in March 2025. He was a member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the West Midlands from 2019 to 2020.
Prior to entering politics, Lowe worked in business and was chairman of Southampton Football Club. He led the club from 1996 to 2006. Returning in 2008, his second tenure ended in 2009 when the club entered administration.
At the 2019 European Parliament election, Lowe was elected as MEP for the West Midlands, representing the Brexit Party. He held this role until the UK's withdrawal from the European Union (EU) in 2020. Lowe entered Parliament at the 2024 general election as MP for Great Yarmouth and was appointed Reform UK's Business and Agriculture Spokesman. In March 2025, his Reform UK whip was suspended due to legal accusations.

## Early life and career

Lowe was born on 31 October 1957 in Oxford, Oxfordshire, England. He was educated at Radley College, an all-boys independent boarding school, and the University of Reading. He then worked in the City of London for companies such as Morgan Grenfell, Deutsche Bank and Barings Bank. He was also a board member of the London International Financial Futures Exchange. He founded Secure Retirements, a quoted care home provider, with Andrew Cowen, later the Southampton vice-chairman.

## Football career
### Southampton Football Club

In the mid-1990s, the Southampton board were looking to float the club on the London Stock Exchange, a long and costly procedure. Therefore, they attempted a reverse takeover as a way to reduce costs. They needed to find a company that had already floated and take it over while effectively being taken over themselves. Lowe's Secure Retirements, which ran nursing homes, was identified as a candidate. The resultant group was renamed Southampton Leisure Holdings. After the deal was completed, Lowe became chairman of the club.
In the summer of 1997, manager Graeme Souness left after just one season in charge, as did director of football and former manager Lawrie McMenemy. This came as a shock to the local press, who regarded McMenemy as 'Mr Southampton'; he had previously managed the club from 1973 to 1985, guiding it to FA Cup success in 1976 and finishing second in the league in 1984.
Lowe guided the club from their old stadium into the 32,000-seater St Mary's Stadium, which opened in 2001, and the club continued to follow a long-standing policy of selling players for high prices. Players such as Dean Richards and Kevin Davies were sold to Tottenham Hotspur for £8 million and Blackburn Rovers for £7 million respectively.
During his ownership of the club, the Saints maintained their Premier League status into the 21st century, despite having been in regular relegation battles since the early 1990s. There were eight managers during his tenure. Dave Jones left the club in January 2000 amid a criminal investigation, though he was later cleared of all charges. Jones was succeeded by Glenn Hoddle, who left just over a year later to join Tottenham Hotspur. Lowe then appointed Stuart Gray, but Gray was swiftly replaced by Gordon Strachan after a poor start to the 2001–02 season. Strachan guided the Saints to a secure 11th-place finish.
In 2003, Southampton reached the FA Cup Final and qualified for the UEFA Cup for the first time in nearly 20 years, also finishing eighth in the league; their highest finish for well over a decade. Gordon Strachan resigned in March 2004, and Lowe and the board took the decision to replace him with Paul Sturrock before the end of the season. Sturrock himself left the club by "mutual consent" within six months, despite achieving good results during his time in charge. It was alleged that Lowe attempted to interfere in team selection after consulting the former head coach of the England national rugby union team Clive Woodward, who was being approached about a possible role at the club at the time.
Lowe appointed Harry Redknapp manager of Southampton in December 2004. Redknapp had quit as manager of Southampton's south-coast rivals Portsmouth two weeks earlier. Southampton were relegated in 2005 and Lowe appointed Clive Woodward as the Director of Football of Southampton in July 2005. Redknapp resigned as manager in December 2005 and subsequently rejoined Portsmouth.
Lowe won a libel case against The Times in 2005 regarding a column by the sportswriter Martin Samuel that alleged that Lowe had treated Jones "shabbily" following the latter's suspension after he was accused of child abuse charges on which he was subsequently acquitted. Lowe was awarded £250,000, which he pledged to donate to charity.
On 30 June 2006, Lowe resigned under huge pressure from club supporters, including the newly formed Saints Trust, following the club's failure to win promotion back to the Premiership. Michael Wilde, a new investor in Southampton Leisure Holdings, led a new team of directors in taking over the club. The Saints were beaten in the 2006–07 Championship playoffs, and failed to mount a promotion challenge the following season.
In July 2008, Lowe returned as chairman of Southampton Leisure Holdings. At an AGM on 23 December 2008, he received several calls to resign from former chairman Leon Crouch and from fans and shareholders at the meeting. On 2 April 2009, Southampton Leisure Holdings was placed into administration, resulting in Lowe's resignation from the board.

### Garforth Town

In December 2012, Lowe purchased Garforth Town of the Northern Premier League, along with the franchise operation of Socatots & Brazilian Soccer Schools linking up again with Simon Clifford, who had been employed as a Southampton coach in 2005. Lowe left the club in January 2015.

### Football Association

Lowe has served as a member of the executive board of The Football Association as a Premier League representative and as an FA Councillor and on the FA Cup committee.

## Political career

Lowe was a member of the Conservative Party until 1993, when he left the party after questioning the Maastricht Treaty. He stood for election as the Referendum Party candidate for The Cotswolds in the 1997 general election and came fourth. He won a seat for the Brexit Party in the West Midlands constituency in the 2019 European Parliament elections. He had planned to be the Brexit Party Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for the Dudley North constituency of the UK Parliament but withdrew. In a January 2020 speech in the European Parliament, he cast doubt on the validity of man-made climate change, calling it a "cult" which "marches on with no definitive evidence to support or deny the factual accuracy of [climate scientists'] assertions".
In March 2023, Lowe returned to politics as Reform UK's Business and Agriculture Spokesman. He contested the 2024 Kingswood by-election, finishing in third place, surpassing 10% and achieving Reform's best-ever by-election result. This was bettered later the same day by Ben Habib's 13% of the vote in the Wellingborough by-election.

### Parliamentary career

In the July 2024 general election, he stood for the Great Yarmouth constituency and won, gaining 35.3% of the vote. After his election, he compiled a list of schools in his constituency where he said that teachers had a bias against Reform UK during the election campaign, saying he would be meeting with headteachers to discuss the allegations. He also pledged to donate his MP salary to a different local charity or worthy cause each month.
In January 2025, American billionaire Elon Musk, who had endorsed Reform UK, called on Nigel Farage to resign as leader, and then praised Lowe. Lowe thanked Musk, but reiterated his support for Farage. The dispute between Musk and Farage stemmed from Musk's endorsement of imprisoned far-right activist Tommy Robinson, who Farage has rejected; Lowe said Robinson should be acknowledged for "exposing these [child rape] gangs" but called him "not right for Reform".
On 8 January 2025 Lowe brought in a Ten Minute Rule Bill to ban quantitative easing, praising Argentinian president Javier Milei and looking forward to Elon Musk working with Donald Trump, before saying "The cost of government should be covered by taxes alone, limiting the growth of excessive statism" which he said was linked to "a general moral decline in society".
In January 2025, Lowe voted along with other Reform UK MPs to block the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill with a motion that called for a new national inquiry into grooming gangs. The amendment was defeated at 364 votes to 111, a majority of 253 against the amendment.
On 6 March 2025, in an interview with the Daily Mail, Lowe criticised the governance of Reform UK as "a protest party led by the Messiah", suggesting he might leave the party if things did not change, and saying it was too early to tell if Nigel Farage would make a good prime minister. Farage disputed Lowe's criticism of himself and Reform UK, describing his personal following as a good thing, and went on to suggest Lowe's remarks were driven by a desire to be Prime Minister himself. In the same Daily Mail interview, Lowe stated he thought that MPs' pay should be increased to about £250,000 a year with the size of the House of Commons halved, and described the BBC as a "cancer at the heart of Britain".

### Suspension from Reform UK

On 7 March 2025, it was announced that Lowe had been reported to the police by Reform UK after its Chairman, Zia Yusuf, alleged Lowe made verbal threats against him three months and a month prior, in December 2024 and in February 2025 respectively, and that he was also under investigation by Reform UK for claims of bullying within his parliamentary office. Reform UK said that Lowe had also refused to cooperate with the investigation, while Lowe himself said that Reform UK's statement was published before an investigation had even begun. Lowe subsequently had the whip suspended by Party Whip Lee Anderson who said 'to remove the whip was a deeply painful thing to do.'
Lowe denied all allegations against him and called them vexatious. He also alleged that there were malicious briefings against him by 'senior Reform figures' to journalists to claim he had dementia and that both his removal from Reform UK and the investigation into his alleged conduct were in response to his criticisms of Farage as leader of the party. In particular, an incident a day prior to his suspension where he directly challenged Farage's leadership style in an interview and sarcastically said that Reform UK was a 'protest party led by the Messiah'. In a statement to the media, Lowe said he had been continually "frozen out of meetings, policy discussions, press conferences and more" for pushing for internal party reform, and accused Farage of putting "a knife in [Lowe's] back over false allegations".
Lowe said that he had been feuding with Farage over the former's endorsement of mass deportations and support for forcibly removing over a million people from the UK if required: "If you are here illegally, you should be deported. That has to be the objective. If that results in one million plus deportations being the eventual aim? Then so be it."
Staff members for Lowe have called the bullying allegations 'nonsense' and the alleged bullying by Lowe was later revealed not to involve him. Lowe's entire parliamentary team wrote a public letter in support of him, denying the allegations and stating they have never been contacted as part of any parliamentary investigation. Former Deputy Leader of Reform UK Ben Habib called Lowe's suspension 'an injustice'. Habib accused Farage and Yusuf of 'trumping up complaints against' Lowe to oust him after Elon Musk suggested Lowe should become Leader of Reform UK instead of Farage. Reform's official X account stopped retweeting Lowe's posts after Musk's comments. Habib called for both men's resignations.
Musk has reportedly considered backing Lowe if he forms a new party after the row, while multiple senior Conservative figures expressed an interest in Lowe defecting to the Conservative Party instead.

## Personal life

Rupert Lowe is a multi-millionaire. He is married to Nicky Lowe and they have four children.
Lowe owns Ravenswell Farm in Withington, near Cheltenham in Gloucestershire. The operations of racehorse trainer Fergal O'Brien are based at the farm.

## Later career

In February 2018, Lowe was one of several people who received undisclosed damages payouts from Mirror Group Newspapers as part of the phone hacking scandal.
Lowe was appointed a Director of Rutherford Health, PLC in 2018 and Digme Fitness in 2017.

## Electoral history

General election 2024: Great Yarmouth :
| Party | Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% |
| | Reform UK | Rupert Lowe | 14,385 | 35.3 | New |
| | Labour | Keir Cozens | 12,959 | 31.8 | 6.7 |
| | Conservative | James Clark | 10,034 | 24.6 | −41.2 |
| | Green | Trevor Rawson | 1,736 | 4.3 | 1.9 |
| | Liberal Democrats | Fionna Tod | 1,102 | 2.7 | −1.1 |
| | Independent | Paul Brown | 230 | 0.6 | New |
| | English Democrat | Catherine Blaiklock | 171 | 0.4 | New |
| | Independent | Clare Roullier | 131 | 0.3 | New |
| Majority | Majority | Majority | 1,426 | 1.9 | |
| Turnout | Turnout | Turnout | 73,317 | 56 | −6.4 |
| | Reform UK gain from Conservative | Reform UK gain from Conservative | Swing | | |
2024 Kingswood by-election :
| Party | Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% |
| | Labour | Damien Egan | 11,176 | 44.9 | +11.5 |
| | Conservative | Sam Bromiley | 8,675 | 34.9 | –21.3 |
| | Reform UK | Rupert Lowe | 2,578 | 10.4 | New |
| | Green | Lorraine Francis | 1,450 | 5.8 | +3.4 |
| | Liberal Democrats | Andrew Brown | 861 | 3.5 | –3.5 |
| | UKIP | Nicholas Wood | 129 | 0.5 | New |
| Majority | Majority | Majority | 2,501 | 10.0 | N/A |
| Turnout | Turnout | Turnout | 24,869 | 37.1 | –34.4 |
| Registered electors | Registered electors | Registered electors | 67,103 | | |
| | Labour gain from Conservative | Labour gain from Conservative | Swing | +16.4 | |
European Election 2019: West Midlands :
| List | List | Candidates | Votes | Of total (%) | ± from prev. |
| | Brexit Party | Rupert Lowe, Martin Daubney, Andrew England Kerr | 507,152 (169,050.67) | 37.66 | N/A |
| | Labour | Neena Gill | 228,298 | 16.95 | −9.76 |
| | Liberal Democrats | Phil Bennion | 219,982 | 16.33 | +10.77 |
| | Green | Ellie Chowns | 143,520 | 10.66 | +5.40 |
| | Conservative | Anthea McIntyre | 135,279 | 10.04 | −14.27 |
| | UKIP | | 66,934 | 4.97 | −26.52 |
| | Change UK | | 45,673 | 3.39 | +3.39 |
| Turnout | Turnout | Turnout | 1,355,222 | 33.1 | |
1997 general election: Cotswold :
| Party | Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% |
| | Conservative | Geoffrey Clifton-Brown | 23,698 | 46.4 | −8.0 |
| | Liberal Democrats | David Gayler | 11,733 | 22.9 | −10.4 |
| | Labour | David Elwell | 11,608 | 22.7 | +11.8 |
| | Referendum | Rupert Lowe | 3,393 | 6.6 | – |
| | Green | Valerie Michael | 560 | 1.1 | – |
| | Natural Law | Henry Brighouse | 129 | 0.3 | – |
| Majority | Majority | Majority | 11,965 | 23.4 | +2.4 |
| Turnout | Turnout | Turnout | 51,121 | 75.9 | −6.5 |
| Registered electors | Registered electors | Registered electors | 67,333 | | +5.9 |
| | Conservative win (new seat) | Conservative win (new seat) | Conservative win (new seat) | Conservative win (new seat) | Conservative win (new seat) |