It was raining outside the Houses of Parliament earlier this year when Lee Anderson was talking to a close confidant.

The subject was his one-time best friend, Rupert Lowe, who had gone from rising star to pariah within Reform after being unexpectedly named as Britain’s next prime minister by Elon Musk.

Within Reform, as Lowe was to later point out, suggesting anyone else could replace Nigel Farage was akin to denying the Messiah, something they could neither accept nor afford.

And so Anderson was in the process of passing on this message, even though it meant sacrificing his former friend.

“He is a hypocrite who preaches about cruelty to animals, yet owns guns and shoots them. He even had his own best friend shot instead of taking him to the vet.

“This is the man, by the way, who wants to be prime minister, and he doesn’t care if he destroys Reform in the process.

“I don’t mind telling you, he’s a dangerous opponent, but I’m taking him on anyway.”

Daily Goat has no evidence that Reform encouraged these actions, or even that they were aware of them, but a clue may lie in how the conversation continued, when he added: “Reform UK are going to back any legal fees I end up with.”

Given the need to protect sources in the cutthroat world of British politics, Daily Goat has not used the exact words. But anyone comparing the original conversation with this account would see no meaningful difference.

Lee Anderson was a man with a mission, and everything said about this betrayal when he was called out by Rupert Lowe is true.

Lee Anderson's Whatsapp profile, provocatively displaying a photo of a dog (Photo: NewsX)

What follows is not a judgment on either man but a record of what we have established. Anderson repeated the story in private conversations, presenting it as a confidence to individual listeners. In those conversations, he relayed Lowe’s account of having a terminally ill dog put down by shooting rather than by a vet.

 More than one person recalls hearing this directly from him, and in one case we have evidence capable of being produced in court. That same evidence also confirms that Anderson claimed the party was backing him for any legal fallout, including covering his costs.

For Lowe, the episode is not just about politics, it is about trust. In an exclusive interview, he describes confiding in Anderson because the two men had each lost a pet at around the same time.

“I considered him a friend,” Lowe says. “I loved that dog. It was a difficult time. Anderson was the only soul I told in Parliament, so to hear it was him leaking it to the media comes as no surprise.”

He adds: “To weaponise my dead dog’s memory against me in order to cause reputational harm is grim, really grim. Filthy politics.”

Lowe’s account sits within a broader rupture inside Reform. After a burst of attention that made him briefly the party’s most talked-about figure, the temperature rose. He says that “as soon as Musk said he liked my social media output, I was a marked man,” and claims the leadership froze him out. He describes what followed as a “political assassination attempt”.

Central to this story are two further claims. First, that Anderson reported Lowe to police amid an escalating war of words. Second, that Anderson told allies the party would cover any legal costs arising from the fight.

Lowe says the police complaint “was wicked and pure evil,” and that his legal action continues. We put both points to sources familiar with the conversations at the time and their recollections separately support that Anderson made both assertions in private settings.

The wider party dynamics are, inevitably, contested. Lowe says the leadership’s actions came after mild public criticism from him and that the timing was no coincidence.

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“Of course Musk’s endorsement made an impact,” he says. “Farage saw me as a threat, so the Reform leadership tried to put me in prison.”

He insists he cooperated fully with inquiries and rejects character allegations made about him as “untrue and false”.

He also takes direct aim at Anderson’s methods: “If Lee had any courage, he would engage with me publicly and accuse me publicly. He does not. He does it through journalists. It is pathetic.”

As for what comes next, Lowe says he is done with “the Westminster circus.” He has launched Restore Britain to campaign on issues rather than personalities. “I have no doubt that Reform will continue to smear me behind my back,” he says. “My only request? They do it publicly, and put their name to it. Cowards.”

Anderson, for his part, has positioned himself as the party’s disciplinarian-in-chief, someone who sees the job as drawing hard lines and enforcing them. In private, according to those who heard him, he was unapologetic about taking the fight to Lowe, certain that he was confronting a dangerous rival. Publicly he has argued that no individual is bigger than the party.

Courts will decide where fair comment ends and defamation begins. The media’s job is simpler: to record that there is solid, corroborated evidence that Anderson spread the private dog story and said the party would cover his legal costs.

What matters is that a private confidence was turned into a political weapon—and, on the basis of sources and material we have, Anderson also said Reform would underwrite any legal bill.

Daily Goat sought comment from Lee Anderson and Reform UK on the specific points raised in this article—namely, that Anderson privately recounted the dog story in ways intended to damage Lowe’s name, and that he said the party would fund his legal costs. At the time of publication, no response had been received.

The legal process will, in time, weigh these claims. For now, the evidence Daily Goat has seen shows that Anderson did tell others about Lowe’s private story and did claim Reform’s support for his legal fight.

Lowe knows the toll this sort of story can take.

“Yusuf and Anderson tried to put me in prison because I bruised Farage’s ego,” he says. “If they had their way, I would be in prison right now. This was wicked and pure evil. All involved in the Reform leadership should be ashamed of themselves.”