Ben Habib, the former deputy leader of Reform UK, has announced the closure of his hard-right political party, Advance UK, claiming the emergence of Restore Britain has made a separate rival movement unnecessary.

Habib quit Reform UK in November 2024 following a dispute with Nigel Farage over immigration policy and Farage’s leadership style. He launched Advance UK in June 2025 as a challenger to Reform, positioning it as a more uncompromising force on the right.

However, speaking to members this week, Habib announced Advance UK would either be de-registered with the Electoral Commission or merged into a broader right-wing campaigning organisation.

“At least on the face of it, Restore Britain is a party that is very, very similar to Advance UK, and we don’t need this kind of confusion on the Right-hand side of British politics,” Habib said.

“The responsible thing to do now is for Advance UK to take a step back and allow the pressure that Restore Britain will undoubtedly bring on Reform and the Conservative Party to develop.

“Now is not the time for us to be standing in elections against Reform, against Restore… and just confusing the landscape.”

Explaining the decision, Habib added: “When the country needed a serious principled political party on the Right, I launched Advance UK.

“The situation has since changed. And so we too must change. We are not in politics for the sake of being in politics. It has never been about egos. It has always been about the country.”

Restore Britain was launched by Rupert Lowe as a breakaway movement designed not just as an alternative to Reform UK, but as a direct challenge to Farage’s dominance of the populist right.

The former Southampton FC chairman, Brexit Party MEP and MP for Great Yarmouth was elected to Parliament in 2024 as a Reform UK candidate, but his relationship with the party leadership quickly deteriorated.

In early 2025, Lowe publicly praised Tommy Robinson and became embroiled in controversy over remarks made in Parliament. Tensions escalated further when he told the Daily Mail that Reform was “a protest party led by the Messiah”. He also argued that MPs should be paid around £250,000 a year while the size of the House of Commons should be halved and described the BBC as “a cancer at the heart of Britain.”

Reform suspended Lowe in March 2025 following allegations of bullying within his parliamentary office and claims that he had made verbal threats against party chairman Zia Yusuf.

Restore Britain’s first electoral breakthrough came through its local affiliate, Great Yarmouth First (GYF).

GYF contested ten council seats and won all ten, taking seven from the Conservatives and two from Labour while helping to deny Reform overall control of the council.

Spurred on by its success in Great Yarmouth, Restore Britain is seeking to expand beyond Norfolk. The party has set its sights on the forthcoming Makerfield by-election, where Lowe has announced local businesswoman Rebecca Shepherd as its candidate.

Restore claims it is currently polling around seven per cent in the constituency, raising concerns among some on the right that a split right-wing vote could ultimately benefit Labour.

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Reform UK was aware of Robert Kenyon’s past social media activity before they picked him as their Makerfield by-election candidate. 

Kenyon has two suspended X accounts and a deleted Facebook account, which have been scrutinised over a series of offensive posts he has made.

These include anti-abortion remarks, derogatory comments about women, resharing comments by far-right influencers and blaming a stabbing attack on the “invasion of foreign criminals” in the UK.

Kenyon previously claimed that women can’t “ref, drive or give directions” and that they get abortions for “vanity purposes”.

He also agreed with a comment another social media user made about wanting “smell & lick” Carol Vorderman’s “arsehole”.

In other comments on an online rugby league forum, Kenyon criticised Brexit and suggested he didn’t vote Leave in 2016.

As reported by POLITICO, a Reform spokesperson confirmed to the outlet that “Rob declared his accounts during the vetting process as everyone is expected to. The party has fully backed him as our candidate for Makerfield.”

This indicates that Reform saw Kenyon’s troubling social media output, but still decided to select him as their candidate for the second time, after he stood in Makerfield in the 2024 general election. 

Despite making a large number of offensive posts online, Kenyon has not apologised, and told the Sunday Times he was “a regular, normal bloke and I speak like a normal bloke does”.

He also claimed “dragging up” comments “puts people off getting involved in politics”.

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

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France’s far-right National Rally (RN) has indicated it could veto any future British attempt to rejoin the European Union unless the move is first endorsed by a second referendum in the UK.

Any country seeking to join, or rejoin, the EU requires the unanimous approval of all 27 member states, giving individual governments the power to block accession bids.

Jordan Bardella, president of the RN and one of the leading contenders for the French presidency in 2027, said Britain could not legitimately return to the bloc without putting the question back to voters.

“To do so without a referendum would obviously be a denial of democracy because the people expressed their will through a referendum to leave,” he told the Telegraph.

“It’s a bit of a special case, but yes we would oppose it without a referendum, I think, because in any case we’re against any enlargement of the EU anyway.

“It seems perfectly normal to me, given that there was a referendum to leave, that we can’t accept a country rejoining without a referendum.”

Jean-Philippe Tanguy, RN’s deputy parliamentary leader, lashed out at the prospect of a Brexit reversal without another referendum, describing the prospect as: “Quelle horreur!”

The comments came as the Labour leadership crisis has pushed the UK’s relationship with the EU back into the spotlight, with debate around rejoining the EU intensifying.

Wes Streeting said Brexit was a “catastrophic mistake” and the UK should “one day” rejoin the bloc.

Andy Burnham, who is the most popular Labour figure among party members and voters and is expected to launch a leadership challenge if he wins the Makerfield by-election, has also said there may be a case for rejoining the EU “in the long-term”.

However, he sought to distance himself from the discussion about rejoining the EU, insisting he was “not advocating that in this by-election.”

Keir Starmer has refused to rule out a return to the political union one day, insisting he would “not get lost in a debate about what might happen years down the line”.

Presidential elections are due to take place in France in April 2027, with Bardella widely tipped as the favourite to clinch victory.

The RN, long associated with Marine Le Pen’s Eurosceptic politics, has sought to moderate its image in recent years while continuing to advocate a more nationalist vision of Europe.

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In early May, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, formally designated the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) as a right-wing extremist organisation. The decision marked an escalation in Germany’s efforts to confront threats to democratic institutions and constitutional order.

The move came just months after the AfD secured its strongest ever electoral performance, finishing second in Germany’s February federal elections with 20.8% of the vote and 152 seats in the 630-seat Parliament. The party has also drawn vocal support from prominent figures within the Trump administration in the United States.

As the BBC reported, Germany’s foreign ministry defended the classification after US secretary of state Marco Rubio condemned it as “tyranny in disguise”, while vice-president JD Vance claimed Germany was “rebuilding the Berlin Wall.”

Writing on X, Vance said that “the AfD is the most popular party in Germany, and by far the most representative of East Germany. Now the bureaucrats try to destroy it.”

The AfD has already been under surveillance for suspected extremism, and regional intelligence agencies in three eastern German states, where the party enjoys its strongest support, had previously classified local branches as right-wing extremist.

Campaign group Sheffield for Europe said the development shows how seriously German authorities are treating threats to democratic stability.

They wrote: “This article from last May reports on how the German intelligence services have classified the righting Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) as extreme-right, and are monitoring their activities – just showing how alive the German authorities are to the threats to their democracy.”

It argued that, while intelligence matters are rarely discussed publicly, “we would expect and hope that our own intelligence services are actively monitoring Reform, including those who are providing lavish funding to undermine democracy – indeed, it would be incredibly negligent if they were not doing so.”

The group pointed to several issues it believes warrant scrutiny. These include the case of former Reform UK Wales leader Nathan Gill, who is serving a prison sentence after being convicted of accepting Russian-linked payments to promote pro-Kremlin narratives during his time as an MEP. It also highlighted controversy surrounding Reform UK leader and Clacton MP Nigel Farage, including questions raised over a reported £5 million gift from a Thailand-based businessman for personal security.

The group further argued that questions remain unanswered about the full extent of foreign influence in British politics, particularly following longstanding calls for the complete publication of the Russia Report into allegations of “dark money” entering the UK ahead of the 2016 Brexit referendum.

They concluded with a warning against political complacency:

“The media seem peculiarly naive and silent on the threat to democracy and human rights posed – ‘it could never happen here’ complacency of jaw dropping magnitude.”

 Germany’s designation of the AfD may have been aimed at domestic concerns, but it also serves as a wider European reminder that democratic systems cannot assume immunity from extremism simply because threats emerge through electoral politics rather than outside them.

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The BBC recently faced criticism over a report described as “misleading” in its portrayal of asylum seekers. The report centred on what it called a “shadow industry,” allegedly helping migrants “pretend to be gay” in order to secure asylum in the UK.

According to the BBC, this was the first instalment of a major undercover investigation into how individuals nearing the end of their visas are coached to fabricate asylum claims, complete with supporting letters, photographs, and even medical documentation.

The investigation uncovered instances of legal firms charging up to £7,000 to construct such claims, sometimes assuring clients that their chances of refusal by the home office were “very low.” Those implicated were often individuals already in the UK on expired student, work, or tourist visas, not people arriving through irregular routes such as small boat crossings.

Taken at face value, the BBC’s focus seems directed less at asylum seekers as a whole and more at the intermediaries profiting from and potentially manipulating vulnerable people.

But critics argue that the report risks distorting public understanding, saying it “massively distorts” reality by presenting what may be a very small set of cases as broadly representative of the asylum system. Such critics include the campaign group Rainbow Migration, which highlighted government data suggesting that only around 2% of asylum claims cite sexual orientation as grounds for protection.

Yet predictably, the report was seized upon by commentators and politicians advancing a nationalist, anti-migrant agenda.

Conservative MP Nick Timothy used the story to argue that human rights laws have undermined immigration control, accusing lawyers and charities of “abetting thousands of crimes.”

Similarly, Reform UK’s Matt Goodwin described the asylum system as “a complete and utter joke,” using the report to reinforce calls for sweeping reform.

But the most hysterical reaction came from Sun columnist Julie Hartley-Brewer, who framed the BBC’s investigation as validation of long-standing claims about widespread abuse of the asylum system. In a celebratory column, she argued that the broadcaster had finally acknowledged what she called the “Great British Asylum Scam,” and provocatively suggested that the BBC had effectively joined the “far-right bandwagon.”

She ended: “So to those at the BBC who have finally woken up to the Great British Asylum Scam, welcome on board the far-right bandwagon! We’ve been expecting you.”

We’ve seen it time and time again. What begins as a story about limited abuse within the system is quickly sold as proof that the entire system is broken, less an exercise in scrutiny than a case study in how narratives are bent to fit political ends. In that sense, the BBC’s reporting, however intended, risks being folded into the same kind of agenda-driven framing it is meant to interrogate.

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Zak Coleman is a campaigner at Green New Deal Rising, a youth-led organisation campaigning for climate justice.

There’s no point sugarcoating it. The far right is on the march. And instead of standing up to Farage and Reform, this Government is dancing to their tune with ever crueler migration policies and authoritarian crackdowns on our rights to protest.

On Thursday 7th May, less than two weeks from today, there are huge elections taking place across the country. For the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments, and local councils and mayoralties in England. These are the biggest set of elections until the next general election. If Labour do as badly as predicted, these results could be the final nail in the coffin for Keir Starmer. Whatever happens, they will mark a turning point in our politics – either Farage and the forces of hate that surround him will gain massive momentum on their path to Downing Street. Or – as we saw in Gorton and Denton – the forces of hope and resistance will start to wrestle the political conversation back from the radical right. 

It’s up to us to make sure these elections are a turning point towards hope. To send a message to this Government – that our vision of a world where everyone can thrive is more powerful than Reform’s billionaire-backed hatred and division. And far more popular.

Hannah Spencer didn’t just win Gorton and Denton because she was an incredible candidate. She won because an army of volunteers – ordinary people like us, many of whom had never campaigned in an election before – mobilised to knock on doors, make phone calls and deliver leaflets. 

In May we need to make sure that happens across the country. That’s why we’ve created My Election Map, an online tool which points you towards nearby events where you can help elect hope and beat the far right this May. Just enter your postcode and My Election Map will show you where your time and energy could tip the scales for inspiring candidates offering a hopeful alternative to this Government and Reform. Candidates who stand up for migrants and trans rights, who want to see serious action to tackle inequality and redistribute wealth. Candidates who support liberation for Palestine and radical action to address the climate emergency.

The world can feel so dark right now. But it always feels darkest when we’re facing it alone, in our homes and on our social media feeds. On 7th May, we have the chance to turn the tide by getting out into our communities, with other people who want to fight for hope with us, and changing things together. So whether you’ve canvassed in every election for the last 50 years, or never, we need you. Use My Election Map today – to elect hope, beat the far-right and defend your community. 

Want to stay up to date on our work? Join Green New Deal Rising’s mailing list here and follow us on social media @GNDRising. You can also donate to support our election work here. 

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