Extreme fighting
Mail papers , Issue 1678

THE Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday turned the full force of their guns on Rupert Lowe and his party Restore Britain in the run-up to the Makerfield by-election, belatedly noticing that they were happy to hang out with white supremacists and neo-Nazis and accept “bigoted and deeply sinister hoodlum” Tommy Robinson as a member.

What bothered the paper much more than such extreme right-wingery, though, was revealed in the repeated subheadings it ran on its series of stories: “VOTE RESTORE... GET BURNHAM”, and an editorial frothing: “How can anyone support Restore when doing so could help propel the Labour Left’s Great Red Hope, Andy Burnham, into Downing Street?”

A right Charlie
But the Mail hasn’t always objected to Restore. As recently as last year, it awarded four separate opinion columns to Charlie Downes, Restore’s campaigns director, to detail his belief that being English was an “ethnic identity” and to call for the “mass deportation of more than 1.2m illegal immigrants”.

For good measure he also declared that “democracy has lost its way” and “it’s no wonder so many of my generation believe it’s time for a dictator”.

Cometh the hour, cometh the man, and it was in the very pages of the Mail last July that Downes announced: “I, with independent MP Rupert Lowe and others, have helped to launch Restore Britain, a cross-party coalition that seeks to speak for Britain’s patriotic majority, who believe the decline of our country can be reversed.”

Only once the monster had got out of hand and started to threaten Nigel Farage’s vote share did the Mail decide it was time to worry.

White stain
Recently Restore activist Lucy White – who caused a furore last November when she declared that deputy speaker Nus Ghani should not be allowed in the Commons because she was born in Pakistan, and accused home secretary Shabana Mahmood of having “the audacity to larp [live-action role play] around as English” before proposing “sending the third worlders home” – claimed that “the Daily Mail also headhunted me to become a writer for them” before the scandal.

And Robinson has his own fervent fans among the senior staff at the Mail too: as Eye 1642 revealed, the paper’s long-serving investigations editor Sue Reid, who has a particular focus on immigration and, more recently, grooming gangs, took to X to declare him the “Mandela of his time”.

In recent weeks Reid approvingly shared a video of Lowe defending the serial jailbird and former leader of the English Defence League, and declared fellow far-righter Ben Habib “a hero” for giving his support to Restore.

PS: The morning after the by-election brought the familiar sound of ferrets reversing at the Mail. In an online Q&A with political writer Andrew Pierce, one headline read: “Do Reform and Restore Britain need to unite to stop a Labour victory at the next election?”

More top stories in the latest issue:

PRICE POINTS
Bosses at the Sun have decided that churning out relentless “premium content” about the woes of former page 3 girl Katie Price is a surefire money-spinner.

SAFEGUARD ISSUES
How Bournemouth’s Daily Echo has pivoted from questioning the credentials of a local vigilante group to, er, giving them a page in the paper.

USING BECKS AS A WEAPON
No sign of a peace deal in one of the world’s most bitter conflicts: the ongoing feud between David and Victoria Beckham and their estranged son Brooklyn.

RUSSIAN WHISPERS
The Telegraph set out to debunk lurid conspiracies about the arson attacks on Keir Starmer’s property – but its readers have other ideas.

LOTTERY LOSER
How Richard “Dirty” Desmond went for broke suing the Gambling Commission – and lost.