'Indians and Pakistanis take our jobs': UK far-right leader’s social media post sparks row

London: The leader of a far-right party in the UK has created a social media storm with his anti-immigration posts, including one attacking the “import” of Indians and Pakistanis who took away jobs from unemployed Britons.

Rupert Lowe, elected as an MP from Great Yarmouth on the east coast of England for the Nigel Farage-led Reform UK, launched his own far-right off-shoot Restore Britain party after being suspended following an internal rift last year.

His online comments have gone viral in recent weeks ahead of a crucial by-election in Makerfield, backed by some reposts by tech billionaire Elon Musk on his X platform.

“I don’t believe we should import millions of Pakistanis and Indians to do jobs that unemployed Brits should be doing. If that makes me a racist, then so be it,” Lowe said in a post on Thursday.

“Expecting foreign nationals living in England to speak English and give more than they take is not racist. Even if you think it is, we don’t care,” he said earlier in the week.

In a direct challenge to his former party leader, Lowe reacted to Farage’s post calling for a “serious conversation” after Sweden banned cousin marriages common among certain migrant communities over health concerns.

“We don’t need a ‘serious conversation’ about a ban – you are weak. A Restore Britain government will proudly ban cousin marriage, day one,” he declared.

In similar declarations targeting Muslim and Sikh communities, the 68-year-old former businessman demanded “ban the burqa, sharia courts, cousin marriage, halal slaughter” and pledged that a Restore Britain government will “ban the kirpan in public spaces. One rule for all”.

“Men walking around with two, three, four women in burqas – this is NOT normal. I detest it. Some of the high streets in different suburbs of Manchester? It is Islamic. British family run businesses driven away, and it’s a takeover. Colonisation,” reads an extended post from this week.

“Reverse mass immigration. Deport foreign islamists. End political islam. We’re told to shut up, and just accept it – even embrace it. No longer. We refuse. Restore Britain will do what needs to be done. I promise you that,” he declared, making a campaign pitch for next month’s by-election that is expected to split the far-right vote between Reform UK and Restore Britain.

Lowe is also at the forefront of a Westminster Hall debate in the UK Parliament complex on Monday on the “collection and publication of child sexual offender data”.

It follows revelations and prosecutions over child sex grooming gangs in parts of England, which Lowe said involves “largely Pakistani Muslim men who have a different view of how they should treat women”.

It follows over 260,000 signatures to an e-petition, calling for a “statutory requirement on councils, the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and all other related institutions to collect, record and publish the nationality, ethnicity, immigration status and religion of child sexual offenders, including gang-based crime”.

Meanwhile, all eyes are on the Makerfield by-election on June 18, which will determine Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham’s bid to win a seat in the House of Commons and mount a challenge to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s leadership of the governing Labour Party.

The clash of the two far-right parties is expected to play in favour of Labour’s bid in the northern England constituency.