Basil the Great's Twitter space, reviewed
The Marquis
If Restore’s defenders, having read some of the recent pieces in these papers, were hoping Rupert Lowe’s Twitter space appearance on Wednesday would prove, once and for all, that he is not suffering from brain fog, they must quite quickly have felt that things had gotten off to a rocky start. Between him joining the space and becoming audible, there is a full, dreadful minute of dead air. What follows between Lowe and a man called ‘Basil the Great’ is a less-than-conventional interview. Its questions and its answers enjoy a only fleeting relationship with one another, a summer fling the autumn of Rupert’s years cuts all too short: asked how he feels the launch of his party has gone, he brags about the perks of his appointment by the Tories to the Public Accounts Committee; asked about remigration, he somehow navigates his way to rambling discourse on AI. The mind is off for a stroll about the garden, and the conversation fast becomes a shifting montage of words and phrases, which seem to escape from the Restore leader almost involuntarily, like the rumbling, swan-song fart of an old pub dog.
Thankfully, things are kept brief. Rupert managed to secure an interview starting around 5:30, knowing he would conveniently have to leave to vote at 6. He carves out for his fans on Twitter only a measly half-hour. From how often he refers to ‘Basil’ by name, we might imagine that he spent no small amount of time preparing for the occasion by reminding himself not to forget. He appears, here and elsewhere in this conversation, to hugely underestimate the role the platform plays in his movement. His neglect, it seems, has been noted: “We were worried in the X community, because you’re doing so well on Facebook and TikTok these days that we thought you might have forgotten about us.” Thus spoke Basil the Great. That Lowe is too busy running his own TikTok account is obviously a falsehood. Facebook is more believable, insofar as he might use it to advertise to the ‘Great Yarmouth Cab Drivers’ group that he’ll be needing a ride home from the pub.
Evidently, he is not running his own Twitter account, and does not pay attention to what his party’s representatives say there. Set the autopen to ‘Based.’ Whether the same could be said of Starmer or Farage is irrelevant, because the difference here is their respective movements have not been born entirely out of the online sphere. Where else does Lowe innocently imagine his 110,000 members have suddenly come from? Perhaps he believes the viewers of GB News saw Young Bob and thought he really did look like just the right sort of chap, rather than that he looks like he sells crisps out of his PE bag. Restore Britain is purely a product of the Online Right; Twitter is all-but the sole vehicle by which their ideas are communicated and their members recruited, and its leader is asleep at the wheel. This renders the last few weeks of discourse on Restore a total waste of time, because there is apparently no relationship between actual party policy and what has been presented to us.
In the wake of his interview with a man I am forced to refer to as ‘Basil the Great,’ the distance between Rupert Lowe and his account is now an unavoidable concern for his movement. Pressed for an answer that might clarify his position on remigration, Rupert is unable to offer anything materially different than Reform: deport illegals and criminals. He is obviously uncomfortable with the implication he would deport British passport holders: ‘I think one has to have some respect for the rule of law.’ He recommends the “hostile environment” approach pioneered by Theresa May. Where the divide seems to lie is that Rupert believes there are untold millions of illegals to deport, while Reform’s estimate is more conservative; an entirely practical, non-ideological difference of opinion.
His more conscientious fans, it seems, have begun to notice. ‘Wolf,’ full-name ‘WorldByWolf,’ and until recently a Restore zealot, is not an account I would ordinarily find myself sympathizing with; his bio demands that I ‘buy him a coffee’ - that most presumptuous, irritating turn of phrase in the world of online begging. At 45k followers, he strikes me as somewhat of a ‘man from nowhere,’ and his presence is a harsh reminder that there does indeed exist a parallel, monstrous double, to the online Right I am more familiar with, seemingly populated entirely by cartoon animals (cf. Basil the Great.) But after yesterday evening’s debacle, it is hard not to feel my heart softening for him. I did not see him join in the veritable afterparty, the second Twitter space, that Basil threw to discuss the interview, which quickly descended into a squealing-match between various lesser-known members of the Yogscast. Poor Wolf, it seems, had too much on his mind to join in the fray; he had this to say:
“I fear the gap between what we’ve projected onto Rupert as what we wished he believed and what he actually believes may be more substantial than I’d hoped.
Still by far the best option we have and really the only option we have but we must all keep pushing for tougher stances.”
The cracks are beginning to show. Does Rupert Lowe really, as his Twitter account suggests, consider automating the Tube a Restore pledge? Does he really believe in the formation of a ‘National Vape Shop Task Force?’ In forcing the unemployed to go pick litter in the countryside? And what, Wolf must be left wondering, is his position on Israel?
Thus far, Rupert’s befuddlement has meant his statements have generally been vague enough to leave his supporters free to interpret them as they like. But Rupert Lowe’s Twitter account is not quite so slow, is not so imprecise, and appears already, as the real Lowe is trying with Farage, to have outflanked him from the Right. His interview with Basil (which, notably, Basil, and not the apparently time-pressured Lowe, brought to an end) will be for his supporters an enormous, terrifying disappointment. There are no clippable moments. There are no lines here that might be set to music. Perhaps Rupert is only keeping in mind the first rule in show-business: always leave them wanting more - or, perhaps, his mind is starting to slip. The greatest danger to the movement right now seems to be that he will suddenly wake up and realise what his staffer-hopefuls have been saying about his party on Twitter; mercifully for them, there are as yet no signs that this might happen.