Rupert Lowe would not say whether King Charles counts as a “white Briton”. Nick Robinson put the question to him on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, and the Great Yarmouth MP and Restore Britain leader talked round it rather than answer.

Official portrait of Rupert Lowe MP, leader of Restore Britain.
Image: ©House of Commons / Laurie Noble more
Official portrait of Rupert Lowe MP, 3:2 crop.Licence: CC BY 3.0

How the question arose

Robinson was pressing Lowe on his claim that white Britons will be a minority by 2063. The forecast Lowe relied on treats a person as a white Briton only when both parents were born in the UK. Prince Philip, the King’s late father, was born on Corfu, so by that measure Charles falls outside the group.

Lowe replied that people held “different interpretations” and that the pair could “split hairs”. Robinson answered that nobody was splitting hairs. Lowe then fell back on the forecast itself, saying he did not think anyone disputed it.

He complained that he had come on air to talk about his party’s economic paper and his quarrel with Nigel Farage. Asked for evidence that Britain was becoming an Islamic country, he pointed to Restore’s 219-page report on rape gangs and said the BBC had not covered it.

The fight with Reform

Lowe was elected for Reform UK in 2024 and sat as an independent after the party suspended his whip in March 2025. He founded Restore Britain on 30 June 2025 and registered it as a party on 20 March 2026.

Farage has said Restore could do Reform “great harm”. Lowe, in a video message that week, urged the two of them to cooperate against what he called a looming left-wing alliance. He said Farage had sent him a single message promising to call later.

A defection at home

The party is picking up support in Lowe’s own town. James Bensly, a long-serving Conservative cabinet member on Great Yarmouth Borough Council, has joined Great Yarmouth First/Restore Britain. Lowe called the switch a “massive boost”.

The move cuts the Conservatives to 17 councillors against Labour’s 18, leaving the Tories running a minority administration. The BBC reported that Bensly had been offered the chance to stand for Restore Britain in Lowestoft at the next general election. Daniel Candon, the Conservative parliamentary spokesman for Great Yarmouth, accused him of putting personal ambition ahead of principle.

Restore Britain now has a council foothold and a sitting MP. It still has no answer to Robinson’s question about who its own definition leaves out.