Restore Britain is being torn apart this week by the toxic racism of its neo-nazi cheerleaders that the party relies upon for much of its its online presence.

Certain factions in the party leadership have encouraged these nazis because of their social media following.

Others are waking up to the fact that the likes of Steve Laws and Sam ‘Zoomer Historian’ Wilkes are so consumed by racism (including antisemitism) that they are happy to trash their own candidates.

Vicious row

Rupert Lowe so far does nothing, allowing both factions to imagine he has their support. It looks certain to end in tears, recriminations, and another imminent split.

This week’s vicious row followed a speech in Gateshead by Orla Minihane, a former Reform candidate who founded the Pink Ladies, “dedicated to protecting women from migrant crime.” Lowe has appointed her as Restore’s “spokeswoman for the safety of women and children”.

Minihane’s group is often used as a front for persistent Islamophobic and racist dogwhistling, but in her latest speech she enraged the fundamentalist racists in her own ranks.

Her crime in their eyes is to have expressed sympathy for non-white victims.

Nazis upset

These are Minihane’s words from an online video that so upset Restore’s nazi faction. “We’ve got to protect our girls, but we have to remember that there are Indian, Asian girls, Pakistani girls, Bangladeshi girls, Somalian girls, who were born here, who are suffering this fate every day. And we have got to protect them also.”

Leading members of Restore’s nazi faction reacted on X by describing Minihane’s video as “coal” (a slang term originating on the American far-right channel 4chan and referring to worthless junk).

Sam Wilkes, the Holocaust denying antisemite who posts as “Zoomer historian”, described it as “abysmal horror coal, actually stinking the place out”, even though it was circulated by a branch organiser from his own party.

A fellow fascist posting as “Anglo Restoration”, who’s believed to have been one of the first of the nazi faction to quit Restore, called Minihane’s speech “disappointing and pathetic”. He said he’d be “forwarding this to family and friends and suggesting they cancel their memberships too.”

Lost patience

After trying in vain to reassure the racists that they should “listen to the context”, Minihane eventually lost patience and wrote, “Thanks for the abuse. Tomorrow is another day and I’ll continue to fight for our women and girls as I do every solitary day, until each and every one of them is safe and secure in this nation we call home!”

This was another red rag to the racists, who saw Minihane’s words as implying Britain should be considered “home” for non-whites, which in the nazi faction’s eyes is a heretical betrayal of “ethno-nationalism”.

Minihane continued with a thinly disguised attack on people she knows perfectly well are fellow Restore members, and in some cases very prominent activists.

Faceless people

She called out “abuse being dished out by faceless people who shout about patriotism whilst they hide behind keyboards bullying those who actually stand up publicly and face the consequences. How very brave of you!”

Howard Cox was among leading members of Restore’s conservative faction who quickly spoke out in support of Minihane, seeing the row as a chance to force Lowe into expelling the nazis. Cox called Minihane’s critics, “jealous scumbags, pathetic amoebas who get off behind their keyboards.”

Cox recently claimed that as an ex-Tory who passed through Reform, then Ben Habib’s Advance UK, and is now in Restore Britain he remains on the “centre-right” and his “politics have not changed”.

Ten days ago, Lowe welcomed Cox as Restore’s transport spokesperson, trying to benefit from Cox’s years of lobbying for motorists and the oil lobby against London Mayor Sadiq Khan.

Self-appointed leader

Steve Laws continues to play the part of self-appointed leader of what he imagines (perhaps correctly) to be a hardcore racist grassroots membership.

He replied directly to Cox, “Go back to Advance, none of the membership wants you involved. Step aside or we are going to make sure that you never get elected under a Restore Britain banner.”

In another X post Laws dismisses Cox as a “boomer retard” and calls on Lowe to “expel him from the party.” He then took on the leader himself, pointing out that Lowe has repeatedly stated that Restore would (unlike Reform) avoid being “tainted by failures of the past”.

Terrible leadership

According to Laws, bringing Cox into the leadership team means that “Rupert has gone back on his word. Fix this immediately or the party will continue to lose members.”

Then, only this morning, Laws tweeted directly against Rupert Lowe demanding that he take sides against Howard Cox and the conservative faction and accusing Lowe of “terrible fucking leadership”.

Laws couldn’t be clearer. The nazis believe they have enough strength inside Restore to threaten leading members, implying they would subvert any future Restore election campaign if Cox was the party’s candidate.

This means Laws, Wilkes, ‘Cal’ Barker (who replied to Cox emphasising “we are not a centre right party”) and others are trying to lead a party within a party. Rupert Lowe can either act against them, or admit that he’s only a figurehead leader with no authority.

Nazi outrage

Even before the row over Minihane’s speech and Cox’s appointment, Restore’s nazi faction was already outraged by statements put out by Jez Hermer, the party’s candidate in a local council by-election this week in Dover. Hermer is an MBE and a Royal Marines veteran, which makes him a cut above most Restore candidates.

A combination of his service record (in a council seat that has an unusually large number of service personnel) and the help of hundreds of party activists bussed in from around London and the South East, meant that Hermer took 284 votes (10.7%) in the by-election.

Crucially this ensured Reform failed to gain the seat (they finished 34 votes behind the Greens). But days before the Dover by-election, taking place close to his own Folkestone back yard, Steve Laws had already condemned his own party’s candidate.

Aryan purists

Hermer’s sin was to have told journalists he was trying to reassure local voters that Restore isn’t an “ethnonationalist” party. Hermer said, “If I thought the party stood on a policy that you couldn’t be British unless you were pure white, I would not be a member. I don’t believe that for a second.”

This crossed another of Laws’ red lines. It’s becoming obvious that Laws isn’t happy with a party that simply accepts racists and nazis like himself and Wilkes. He wants theirs to be the official party policy and to exclude those who aren’t Aryan “purists”.

Breaking every unwritten rule in the political book, Laws condemned his own candidate days before polling day. “This is completely unacceptable. I don’t care if he posts remigration.

“I don’t care if he’s a ‘sound geeza’ [sic], he’s another boomer who doesn’t get it. If the candidates can’t even get the basics right, then what’s the bloody point? What are we doing here, honestly?”

Monstrous

And that’s a question many are asking, inside and outside Restore. Just what exactly are Laws and Wilkes doing here? Ex-UKIP, ex-Homeland, self-styled intellectual and policy wonk Pete North at least has the decency to observe how wicked the nazi faction truly are.

He picked up on Wilkes’ obscene retort to Minihane, where the Third Reich apologist wrote, “They aren’t our girls, who cares?”. As North accurately put it, “This neatly encapsulates the ideological conflict on the fringe right. …They don’t grasp where the line is between a principled hard line – and monstrous.”

It looks as though their faction intend to turn “Remigration Now” into an increasingly independent group and perhaps into the nucleus of yet another rival party.

If so, this could be part of a realignment of British fascism, and might explain some of the interest that Nick Griffin is showing in a return to active politics.

On the payroll

Laws and Wilkes try to associate themselves with the most “ethnonationalist” of Lowe’s inner circle, Charlie Downes.

But as several of the more perceptive nazis have commented, Downes is unlikely to say or do anything on their behalf, because he makes a living on Lowe’s payroll and it’s very unlikely the nazi faction would be able to offer him an equivalent salary if they break away.

As Searchlight recently explained, the British Democrats lack inspiring leadership, but they do have a party structure.

Laws and Wilkes have a huge online presence that dwarfs the Brit Dems and most others on the British far right, but they might prefer taking over an existing party rather than setting out on the long and tiring task of building their own, especially with Wilkes being based in Guernsey and preferring to spend his time writing.

Fading reputation

Griffin has a name and for what little it’s now worth, a fast-fading reputation.

Conspiracy theorists among his nazi rivals believe it’s possible that when Griffin makes his move, he will try to recruit the online nazis and link them with the sclerotic British Democrats under his leadership.

Searchlight readers will remember that this is a repeat of his strategy in the late 1990s exposed at that time by us and by an undercover televised Cook Report.

In those days Griffin was putting together two opposing factions in the BNP, together with factions from the National Front and National Democrats, as well as a secret ally who was then close to the UKIP leadership. All in the service of his personal ambition.

Are we about to see an updated version, more than a quarter-century later?