A horrific murder – and a civil war threatening to tear apart the British right | Joe Mulhall

After the conviction of Henry Nowak’s killer, the right is embracing racialised language. This tragedy is now just part of a political tussle

Joe Mulhall is director of research at the anti-fascism organisation Hope Not Hate

T he video of the murder of 18-year-old Henry Nowak at the hands of Vickrum Digwa in Southampton is horrifying. But Nigel Farage’s decision to respond to these events by calling for “pure cold rage” and insisting we recognise that “white lives matter” is a worrying sign of an increasingly racialised turn in the politics of the British right.

This shift has not taken place in a vacuum. For a year now, while progressives have worried about how to beat Reform, Farage’s party has faced a new threat that has come not from the left, but a party even further to the right. Restore Britain, a party founded by former Reform MP Rupert Lowe, has been deeply critical of Farage’s outfit for not being radical enough. These criticisms have put pressure on Reform – and they may push British politics even further right.

The roots of Restore Britain can be traced back to Lowe’s bitter departure from Reform in March last year. Soon after Lowe described Reform as “a protest party led by the Messiah”, the party’s chair, Zia Yusuf, alleged that Lowe had made threats of physical violence against him – and several party employees accused the Great Yarmouth MP of bullying within his parliamentary office. Lowe has denied both allegations .

In June last year, Lowe launched Restore as a “political movement” before transforming it into a fully fledged national political party this February. While multimillionaire Lowe is its only MP, a small clique of young activists, including Charlie Downes, Harrison Pitt and Lewis Brackpool, have been some of its most prominent spokespersons.

The launch of the party was met with enthusiasm across large sections of the far right, particularly among those who view Reform as insufficiently hardline on immigration. Last June, during the launch event in his constituency of Great Yarmouth, Lowe drew applause from supporters after promoting a policy centred on large-scale deportations, declaring that “millions will have to go”.

In fact, in recent months Hope Not Hate has documented the deeply concerning array of high-profile extremists who have gravitated to the party, resulting in an important realignment. Restore has drawn together an uneasy coalition that includes figures sitting just to the right of Reform, all the way through to open fascists .