Independent MP tells neo-Nazi account he’d ban kosher meat

Independent MP Rupert Lowe has come under fire after telling a neo-Nazi social media account that he would support banning kosher meat in the public sector.

The Great Yarmouth MP, suspended by Reform UK in March over bullying allegations, was replying on X when he made the remark.

Lowe had written that “no public sector institution should serve halal meat.” When asked by an account bearing the lightning bolt logo of Oswald Mosley’s British Union of fascists, “What about kosher meat?”, he responded: “Ban it.”

The anonymous account, operating under the name @PureNomad, is linked to the New British Union (NBU), a self-described fascist organisation led by former BNP and Britain First activist Gary Raikes. The group wears black shirt uniforms and adopts Mosley-era insignia.

The account regularly shares Holocaust denial, antisemitic conspiracy theories, and open praise of Adolf Hitler. On the same day it engaged with Lowe, it wrote: “I don’t think Hitler was initially wrong,” and blamed “Zionist hands on the country’s purse” for starting the Second World War.

This is the latest controversy involving Lowe, a former Southampton FC chairman elected in July 2024. In June, he told Parliament that halal and kosher slaughter should be banned, calling non-stun meat “morally repugnant.” A month earlier he referred to a small camera in the Commons as a “Jewish camera.”

Earlier this month, he also mistook a charity rowing team for “illegal migrants” off the Norfolk coast, later admitting his error and donating £1,000 to their fundraising appeal.

Lowe lost the Reform whip earlier this year and has since accused Nigel Farage’s party of a “brutal smear campaign.”

Responding to Jewish News, Lowe’s office said: “I have absolutely no idea who that account is or what it has said. My position is that all non-stun slaughter should be banned.”

Shimon Cohen, Campaign Director of Shechita UK, a campaign group defending the Jewish method of religious slaughter, said:“Rupert Lowe’s latest call to “ban” Kosher meat, exposes the xenophobia behind much of the opposition to Shechita, the Jewish religious humane method of animal slaughter for food. Shechita is vital for Jewish life in the UK. Banning Shechita, sinisterly but to no one’s surprise, is simply a means to harm Jewish life.”