Restore rocked as Orla Minihane quits over abuse claims

Orla Minihane has quit Restore Britain after describing what she says was a “horrendous” campaign of abuse from people inside the party. The former spokeswoman for the safety of women and girls says the attacks went beyond her political views — with her daughter targeted and her young nieces allegedly dragged into the row.

Minihane says Rupert Lowe, who appointed her as a party spokeswoman, did not contact her after she resigned. “When you’re useful, people will contact you,” she said. “When you’re not useful anymore, not so much.”

The controversy comes after right-wing broadcaster Alex Phillips also accused Restore supporters of unleashing a “campaign of terror” against her and other women who have fallen out with the party.

Minihane is herself a prominent anti-migrant campaigner and founder of the Pink Ladies. She has spent the past year campaigning against asylum seekers and migrants, making her decision to walk away from Restore particularly striking.

The immediate flashpoint came during a speech in Gateshead. Minihane said victims of sexual exploitation and FGM are not exclusively white and argued that Indian, Asian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Somalian girls born in Britain also needed protection.

Her remarks triggered outrage among figures associated with Restore’s far-right fringe. Holocaust denier and antisemite Sam “Zoomer Historian” Wilkes attacked the speech, while former Homeland and Patriotic Alternative activist Steve Laws also turned on her.

But Minihane says the backlash became much more personal. She told far-right online podcaster Paul Thorpe that attacks appeared on Facebook and TikTok and were directed at her daughter. She also said objects were put through her door.

Asked whether most of the abuse came from outside or inside Restore, Minihane gave a blunt answer: “Mostly within.”

Then came the moment she says finally convinced her to leave. Minihane had previously posted a photograph of her young nieces online, only for someone to send it back with the chilling message: “We know what school they go to.”

She said the incident made her fear that remaining in Restore could put her family at risk. “I saw that actually there is a faction within Restore that are very, very, very unpleasant,” she said. “I decided that I can’t be associated with that.”

Minihane also described a conversation with a Jewish woman she had known since childhood. The woman reminded her that Minihane had attended both her children’s bar mitzvahs and family weddings before questioning how she could remain associated with a party where some members openly parade their antisemitism.

The former spokeswoman was later called a “baby killer” and accused of supporting child killers after comments about the case of American mother Lindsay Clancy.

Her experience echoes claims made by Alex Phillips, a former Brexit Party MEP who supports Reform UK. Phillips has warned of a major increase in “extreme abuse, attacks and harassment” by Restore members against her and other women on the online right who upset them.

The dispute is also threatening to tear the Pink Ladies apart, according to the article.

Minihane is not the only former Restore figure to raise concerns about its internal culture. North East organiser Nick Seton-Rogers, who also resigned last week, described a “very nasty underbelly” inside Restore and called it “deeply misogynistic”.

The article says Restore has attracted a substantial section of Britain’s hardcore ethnonationalist and fascist scene. Minihane’s apparent “hanging offence”, it argues, was suggesting that British girls from Asian and other minority backgrounds were also entitled to protection.

The allegations now leave Restore facing a wider question over its internal culture. If women who challenge activists are subjected to the kind of abuse described by Minihane and Phillips, critics will ask whether the problem goes beyond individual supporters — and reaches deeper into the party itself.

Orla Minihane leaves Restore blaming culture of misogyny and abuse | Searchlight