Restore won’t win Makerfield. They stand to gain much more

It’s Wednesday afternoon, the day before one of the most consequential by-elections in British history, and outside a pub on the southern outskirts of Wigan, the atmosphere is feverish. A Restore Britain meeting is underway: around 40 people mill around benches wearing party paraphernalia, while campaign leaflets are piled high on tables between them. 

But I’m encountering a problem: nobody will talk to the media. “We’re busy. We need space,” one of the campaign team tells me, as I’m ushered towards the car park where journalists have been corralled. 

Young Bob, a high-profile Restore activist who was attacked in Manchester city centre on Monday while hosting a debate stand, is sitting inside the Brewers Fayre, a sprawling pub adjacent to the Wigan Premier Inn. He also refuses to speak.

Reticence towards the press is characteristic of Restore Britain, the insurgent hard-right party that is threatening to play kingmaker in the Makerfield by-election. The party was officially registered by MP for Great Yarmouth Rupert Lowe in February, following his expulsion from Reform UK last year under bitter and contested circumstances. He set up Restore as a result of the public spat, with Lowe’s party positioning itself to the right of Farage’s. Restore combines a hardline anti-immigration message with a fierce anti-establishment ethos. Journalists are typically cast as part of the same elite consensus that the party claims has failed ordinary voters — hence, it seems, the persistent attempts to banish me to the carpark. 

Before Makerfield was thrust to the fore of British politics, this four-month-old party was largely dismissed as an online phenomenon. Beyond endorsements from figures like Elon Musk and an impressive social media reach, critics argued there was scant evidence that Restore possessed much in the way of a substantial voter base. But, in the run up to the Makerfield by-election, this theory appears to have been upended.