RESTORE Britain have refused to apologise for their leader dismissing the Dunblane massacre as “one murder” and have instead doubled-down.
Rupert Lowe, the Yarmouth MP who leads the far-right party which splintered from Reform UK, had sparked fury across Scotland by trivialising the 1996 murder of 16 schoolchildren and their teacher in an episode of the US-based Joe Rogan podcast.
Discussing gun laws in the UK, Lowe said: “They don’t want the public to have guns. As you probably know they banned handguns in the late 90s because there was a murder up in Dunblane.”
Rogan then asked: “One murder?”
Lowe said: “One murder.”
He then went on: “So everybody, my father used to shoot pistols for Oxford University and he had, he’s dead now bless him, but he had all his pistols taken away.”
The comments sparked fury in Scotland, with Keith Brown, the SNP’s depute leader and the MSP for Dunblane, calling them “beyond despicable”.
Former SNP MP John Nicolson said that Lowe had been "shockingly callous and ignorant", adding: "Sixteen wee children killed and their teacher. 15 injured. But his regret here? That his father lost his pistols."
Kenny Ross, who lost his five-year-old daughter Joanna that day, told LBC: "Thirty years have passed and people forget what we had to go through and I wouldn't want anyone else to go through that. It's people like him that are very ignorant and selfish."
The Scottish LibDem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton said Lowe’s comments were “appalling and insensitive”, while Scottish Labour MP John Grady said there are “no words strong enough to condemn what Rupert Lowe has said”.
However, Restore Britain have stood by their leader’s comments and refused to apologise.
“Rupert was clearly referring to one incident”, a spokesperson for the party claimed.
Lowe entered the UK parliament as a Reform MP before becoming an independent, and then setting up Restore Britain as a new party.
Two of Britain’s most prominent neo-fascist leaders have pledged their support to Restore Britain.
Simon Birkett, who leads The Woodlander Initiative – a group purchasing land to create whites-only communities – has told supporters that Restore Britain is the far right’s last viable route to political power.
Steve Laws, who has called for the removal of non-white people from the UK, has urged members of his Remigration Now organisation to join Restore as organisers and candidates to influence the party’s direction.
Craig Houston, who filmed fascist-style demonstrations in Glasgow and Edinburgh last month but denied being involved in organising them, is also a member.
Restore’s policies include mass deportations, a ban on Halal and Kosher meat, an end to “every trace of DEI [diversity, equality, and inclusion] across all government departments”, a referendum on the death penalty, an inquiry into the safety of Covid vaccines, and to “quash all convictions for non-violent breaches of lockdown”.
