Rupert Lowe has High Court challenge against parliamentary watchdog thrown out

Restore Britain MP Rupert Lowe has had a legal challenge against the parliamentary watchdog over its decision to investigate a complaint against him thrown out by a High Court judge.

Mr Lowe, the MP for Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, took legal action against the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme (ICGS), which investigates complaints of inappropriate behaviour against MPs.

It followed the ICGS’s July decision to investigate a complaint made to it about him by a third party, who cannot be identified, in January 2025.

At a preliminary hearing in March, the ICGS argued that the High Court did not have the power to hear the claim as it would interfere with parliamentary privilege, while lawyers for Mr Lowe argued that his challenge should be allowed to proceed.

But in a ruling on Friday, Mr Justice Chamberlain found that the challenge was “barred by parliamentary privilege” and was “accordingly not justiciable”, adding that he had “reached no conclusion” about Mr Lowe’s claim.

He continued in the 14-page judgment that the ICGS’s duties “fall within the exclusive cognisance of the House of Commons”.

He said: “If this court were to entertain Mr Lowe’s claim, it would have to determine whether, as he says, the complaint to the ICGS was politically motivated and made in bad faith.

“There are sound reasons, rooted in the constitutional separation of powers, for Parliament to reserve the determinations of complaints of this kind to its own carefully calibrated internal framework.

“There are equally sound reasons for the courts to respect that reservation.”

In a post on X following the ruling, Mr Lowe said he aimed to “reclaim power for the elected MPs, and therefore the people” through the claim and that the decision allowed “unelected civil servants to weaponise parliamentary privilege”.

He said: “We now have the scandalous situation in which unqualified and unelected civil servants can wield parliamentary privilege to literally place themselves above the law.

“They now hold a special legal status, which means they cannot be challenged in court, positioned even higher than MPs for whom the system was actually designed.”

Mr Lowe was elected to Parliament in 2024 as a Reform UK MP, but was suspended by the party in March last year amid claims he had threatened then-party chairman Zia Yusuf.

He denied the allegations, and the Crown Prosecution Service said no criminal charges would be brought against him in relation to alleged threats towards Mr Yusuf.

He then launched his own party, Restore Britain, in February, and is its only MP.

The ruling represents Mr Lowe’s second High Court defeat related to the claim, having lost a bid to temporarily block the watchdog from investigating the complaint until after a resolution of his claim in February.

Mr Justice Chamberlain said that the MP was seeking to challenge the ICGS’s decision on the basis that it was unreasonable, that it was “made vexatiously as part of a campaign of harassment”, and affected by “apparent bias”.