Academic Agent Is Wrong

A measured response

Credit: House of Commons/UK Parliament

This is a response to a video put out by Academic Agent, entitled “Tory Boys’ Desperate Attack On Rupert Lowe DESTROYED,” in which the aforementioned YouTuber goes through the arguments I put forward in my article for Pimlico Journal, along with other arguments sourced from J’Accuse, in an attempt to debunk them point by point. I think it’s worth addressing these claims, as unlike most of my replies on Twitter this past month, it is not a “bad faith” histrionic assessment that deserves a measured reply.

If you haven’t read my original article, or watched AA’s response video already, it’s worth doing so to understand this essay, as I won’t have the time to repeat everything both of us have already made the argument for.

First and foremost, the supposed “attacks” against Restore are not co-ordinated. The article was my idea, and I went to PJ with my piece. I thought it would be better to have this criticism come from me, as someone who knows personally everyone at the top of Restore, bar Rupert, and someone who’s been involved in the “online right” for over a decade. This was constructive criticism, deliberately trying to bridge the gap between the two camps, and put the case forward in a reasonable, non-personal attacking manner.

Unfortunately, for doing so, I received nothing but abuse and accusations of treason. I am not in thrall to some vast conspiracy. I wrote those words because I believe in them. As a point of principle I would not take money from someone to push a line that I don’t believe is true, or even worse, damaging to the country. I have repeatedly made sacrifices throughout my adult life in order to speak the things that I believe are true, which is why I have received a vast amount of support from oldheads on Twitter across many ideological lines within the movement who recognise that. I am extremely disappointed in the behaviour of people who I have considered friends and allies for many years, simply because I have a differing opinion. I have received messages from people who support Restore who have been shocked by the abuse, who know I’m not a paid operative shill. There are many good and solid people who back Restore, and I know they aren’t representative of the behaviour of some of the most aggressive promoters. I desire nothing more than a united right, instead of all of this infighting. Only after weeks of attacks have I finally come out swinging on social media, because I will not stand for the utter nonsense I have seen being spouted against myself.

Into the substance of Parvini’s rebuttal. He completely missed to begin with the entire point of raising that Rupert Lowe has worked with the Tories in Parliament, and had former Tories on his team. “How can this be an attack when Farage has appointed Suella Braverman and Jenrick?” he argued. Because it’s not. As I highlighted quite clearly in the PJ article:

To be clear, I am not criticising Lowe for any of this. As much as the Tory party has cost this country dearly, practical alliances must be made to advance our cause. But yet again, when Lowe works with such people he is praised by his supporters for being shrewd and ‘statesman-like’, whilst Farage is accused of becoming the establishment for doing the same thing. There is nothing wrong with building coalitions and bringing in supporters who used to wear a different ribbon on their chest. For my sins, I myself was a Conservative member for many years whilst there was no viable national alternative vehicle for right-wing politics. The problem, as before, is the utter hypocrisy of these critiques as levelled at Reform.

Parvini furthermore ignored the arguments that perhaps Lowe was even closer to the Tories than Farage. When he stood down in 2019, it was not part of Farage’s strategy to stand down in all Conservative-held seats, but against Labour. He went further in his desire to not split the vote and let in Corbyn than the Brexit Party did. We have also recently seen evidence that Charlie Downes, the main spokesperson for Restore, tried to join both Jenrick’s personal team, and the CCHQ press team last year. The former is rather defensible, the latter less so, more in a simple career oriented manner, as to attach yourself to CCHQ in 2025 is like joining the Titanic after it hit the iceberg.

But I digress. It is rank hypocrisy to attack Reform for bringing in former Tories when Lowe and his team are just as, if not closer, to them. That is the point of this argument. I won’t condemn Downes for wanting a job with Jenrick, or praising him. I will defend Jenrick myself. So where is the difference between the two camps on this issue? There is, of course, none.

Parvini further argues that Lowe could have taken over the “rotten husk” of the Tories, in order to take over their infrastructure and ground game. The former is impossible. If you bring in all your own players, as he suggests Lowe does, then what does taking over the infrastructure truly mean? The worst people in the Tories are not some of the MPs, but the CCHQ staff. So either you take over the infrastructure, which means keeping the people there, many of whom are the worst subversives in Westminster, or you completely wipe all the libs out, in which case why not just copy their internal design in a new party? The latter is pointless, as the ground game of the Tories is rapidly falling off, with many of their best campaigners having defected to Reform. Nobody has to “inherit” the structure of the Conservatives. To steelman this argument, which Parvini did not make, CCHQ will have access to voter data and intentions, but these will only reflect current intentions, and Restore under the Tory banner would still have to work out who their new voter base is. Reform isn’t completely up to scratch yet on the ground game and voter data, but they will be by election time.

Another argument, made more by J’Accuse than myself, is that the entire thing is a Conservative-led operation, which Parvini completely poo-poo’d. Personally, I don’t believe there is any evidence to suggest a vast conspiracy in this manner. What is true, however, is that only the Tories will benefit from a split vote on the right, and from what I understand, they are very happy with this development. You don’t have to believe Restore was a CCHQ op to think that the Tories have the most to gain from Restore peeling off 2-3% of the vote, and forcing Reform to govern with them, which is a disaster waiting to happen, or stopping a right-wing government being elected to begin with. If Reform fails, the Tories survive. I supported Zero Seats in 2024 as a point of principle because the institution must go.

Next, Parvini says it is incorrect to say that the Restore leadership team and Lowe don’t believe in “hardcore nationalism.” He makes the argument that Restore is merely “operating within the bounds of British law and the realities of British politics,” rather than taking a Total Remigration line. But it is obviously clear from his public comments that Lowe is not an ethnonationalist. All the repeated clips posted from previous interviews from him by those on my side of the argument are meant to demonstrate that there is practically no difference in the ideology of Lowe and Farage. If Restore can be defended for operating within the realities of British politics, why not Farage. This was, again, noted in my PJ article:

What we should all be able to agree on is that Rupert Lowe should not be given more benefit of the doubt than Nigel Farage over any comments which we might take issue with. In fact, given that Farage has explicitly told us for decades that his approach is strategic, whereas Lowe’s primary selling point is simply saying what he believes without caveat, the reverse is more reasonable. One can never know another man’s soul — but the evidence does not vindicate accusations that Nigel Farage is a secret ‘race communist’, nor even that he is less radical than his newest competitor.

Rupert Lowe absolutely does not run his own Twitter account. This, according to Parvini, shows “good leadership.” I think this is fair. However, when most of the arguments for “based Lowe” come from statements from that account, rather than things he has said himself, it simply shows more evidence of his actual stated positions.

Charlie Downes, as Restore’s spokesman, has also repeatedly failed to even articulate a coherent take on British identity when questioned, most famously in an interview with Nana Akua on GB News, where he claimed there was simply not enough time to even discuss it. If you’re going to have a line to the right of Reform on these issues, it must be well thought out, with no holes in it, and you must be able to defend your position robustly when questioned.

While Reform has perhaps “written off” certain specific people at the top of Restore, such as Downes and Connor Tomlinson on a personal basis, I do not believe as Parvini suggests that they have done so for everyone else on the right, and young, radical men. What Reform is doing currently is positioning themselves away from the extremes, in order to win an election. In electoral politics, you don’t constantly toss out red meat to your base, if in doing so you will lose swing voters. It’s a fine balancing act. You could perhaps make the argument that Reform should be doing more on that end, but this is purely a tactical issue. Regardless, their policies that they will implement are certainly good enough to run on for me, as someone who must be within the most right-wing of their voter base.

Restore has also not advanced the positions of Reform either. All of these examples that are given by Parvini and others on Twitter have been repeatedly debunked by pointing out that these are often positions that they have had for a while, and then expanded into specific policies. As one example, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that they waited to expand on their immigration agenda until after they had announced Zia Yusuf as their Shadow Home Secretary. Why would you not want to hold something back for a bit so that you can give something to your cabinet candidates when they’re announced?

Parvini further confuses having a specific policy plan implemented in all areas at this time, with the idea of Farage being “secretly based.” Reform obviously does not have every policy in every area ready to go just yet, but this is not the same as not knowing the general direction of government. The plan, of course, is as Farage said on Powell’s infamous Rivers of Blood speech:

“You need to be in politics — if you’re there not just for a career, but you’re there to change things, to move things on — you need to be ahead of public opinion to try to be a magnet, and to bring public opinion and bits of the media and change with you.”

Obviously, Reform must develop very specific policy and bills to be ready to go. Their “plan” to win the election and implement change in the right direction is one thing, but you do need to “plan” the specifics. As far as I’m aware, movements are being made in this direction as we speak so that they are ready for 2029. Regardless, this argument by Parvini conflated two different issues.

If we want to bring up the argument of policy, then Restore is also lacking in this area. In their recently announced “policy paper” on inheritance tax, they: confused the date of creation and the date of operational independence of the Charities Commission; mixed up two acts five years apart resulting in the blame going to David Cameron, not Tony Blair, for putting DEI in; didn’t understand how Business Relief works; and didn’t announce any actually detailed costings of their policies.

Parvini argues that Braverman and Jenrick being in government under the “14 years of hurt,” is a disqualification, not a qualification. Generally, I would agree. If Johnson, Patel, or Sunak defected and were welcomed in, I think I would seriously chud out. But it’s clear from the graphs on immigration that it was only thanks to Jenrick and Braverman working in at the Home Office that net immigration started to turn around. I won’t go into the full defence of them again, as I would simply be repeating myself. Overall, on the point of defections, this must be highlighted:

As Dominic Cummings and many others have pointed out, the primary concern of [marginal Reform voters] is that Reform is a one-man-band, and that Farage is untested in government. We must keep in mind that these marginal Reform voters are not right-wing radicals. They are, by and large, people who have voted Conservative at every election in the twenty-first century, including 2024. It is to them that these defections must appeal, not to us. This explains the strategic appeal of individuals such as Danny Kruger and Robert Jenrick, who confer a sensibility and legitimacy that Farage has historically lacked with these voters.

Just because there are “thousands of comments” from people online backing Restore, does not mean that this is any winning proportion of the electorate. It is simply not true that the entire online British right is united against Restore either. Many people simply don’t want to stick their head above the parapet and receive constant abuse from the Restore base for daring to break with “The Decision” that has been made for them. The membership numbers for Restore as a party must also be doubted, since they are not legally a party, and cannot have members. I do think that tens of thousands of people have donated, and therefore registered support, but they are not members. However, there clearly are a good chunk of real, live people who do support Restore, who aren’t just posting on Twitter. Lowe does have hundreds of thousands of followers, and I’m sure in a best case scenario, they could get hundreds of thousands of votes across the country. Not nearly enough to win, but enough to hurt, if they do run candidates everywhere.

On criticism of the Christian, moralist turn of Restore, I think Parvini does have a point that “we don’t do God” shouldn’t be the total line of a part on the right. We do have a Christian heritage in this country, and it should be protected. He is also right when he says a certain portion of the electorate are turned off by “moralising.” This is why you need to strike a right balance between noting that yes, we are a Christian nation, and yes, this should be protected and maintained, while not becoming a party of the Puritans.

This, I think, is the misstep that Restore is making, while Reform is keeping that balance. There is not a dearth of Christians within Reform. Danny Kruger is of course the token Christian MP at this point in time, and noted theologian James Orr is now the head of policy. Reform is not, though, talking about banning porn or abortion, or suggesting that we should all be trad-cats, which is the energy that is coming out of Restore. The greatest irony is that Catholicism is not the primary religious tradition of this land, and neither is complete social conservatism. We never lived in multi-generational compounds, or beheaded women for wearing too short skirts. The people of this country celebrated the deposition of the moralising forces of Cromwell, and the restoration of the monarchy. The English are far more Cavaliers than Roundheads by nature. And, most importantly, the threat we face from mass migration and demographic change is so significant that yes, if electorally necessary for now, I would swallow any and all moralising impulses that could stop us from electing a government that sorts out this life or death issue. There is also nothing from Reform themselves ideologically that would prevent them from running on a Christian agenda if they thought it were a vote winner, but they don’t, so they won’t.

The final point Parvini made, addressing my concern over the lack of young talent going away from Reform, is I think not properly argued against. Yes, as mentioned, those at the top of Restore did not get plump jobs in Reform HQ. But those young men who are not public face accounts have the prime opportunity to get on board. As far as I’m aware, there are many jobs that still need to be filled. I, for example, won’t be getting a job at HQ any time soon. That’s not my role. Frankly I would hate slaving away at a policy position. I’m a commentator, someone who finds themselves more comfortable in the middle of a leftist street protest with people screaming at me than at the office. Someone who has never publicly associated their views with their name is perfectly ripe for those jobs. I don’t want CCHQ grifters functioning as spads in the next government!

Parvini concludes that after “50 minutes” of discussion on this topic, all of my arguments, and those from J’Accuse, are simply “bad faith.” I simply can’t see how this is the conclusion he ends up at.

To end on a quote from the man himself, “it’s not an argument, is it?”