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The campaign group replacing Advance UK – a party registered only in December – has refused to rule out foreign funding for its ‘Great British’ efforts.
It comes amid a fiery conflict over the remains of Advance UK, the far-right Reform competitor party that formally deregistered with the Electoral Commission in July.
Advance UK was established by Ben Habib, who was the co-deputy leader of Reform UK from October 2023 until he was removed and replaced by Richard Tice in July 2024.
Habib quit the party in November 2024, after falling out with leader Nigel Farage and then chairman Zia Yusuf – with businessman Habib backing a hardline stance in favour of mass deportations. Habib, who was born in Pakistan, had also called on far-right MP Rupert Lowe to be readmitted to Reform.
On 30 June 2025, Habib took over what was then the Integrity Party, relaunching it as ‘Advance UK’. That same day, former Reform MP Rupert Lowe launched his own project, ‘Restore Britain’ – which soon outflanked the party in every respect. Restore began as a ‘pressure group’ but formally registered as a party this February, and secured 9% of the vote in the recent Greater Manchester Mayoral election.
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It is polling around three per cent across Britain and is seen by Reform as a threat to its chances of securing a majority – with Lowe and Nigel Farage recently engaging in a very public spat over potentially working together.
This July, Ben Habib announced his intention to merge Advance UK with the non-party campaign group ‘Great British PAC’, which he chairs. He launched a ballot of members to certify the move. Around 8,000 members voted from the 38,000 potential voters, with the vast majority eventually backing the transfer.
Advance UK will continue to exist as a company – with, this outlet understands, around £250,000 in funds – but will no longer be regulated by the Electoral Commission. And it will give cash to GB PAC on a case-by-case basis.
GBPAC was set up in 2024 as a pressure group, “in the mold of American political action committees”, as Hope Not Hate puts it. The group writes: “GB PAC spends much of its time opposing the government’s Chagos Islands deal with Mauritius. It has also supported Tommy Robinson events and a protest opposing puberty blockers for trans youth.
“Plans to launch an academy to teach future right-wing leaders, host a conference, and publish a list of legislation it wishes to overturn appear to have stalled,” the anti-hate group said in a February briefing. Its advisory group includes far-right activists like Carl Benjamin (AKA YouTuber Sargon of Akkad).
Despite Habib’s stated aversion to ‘ethno-nationalism’, a regional director of GBPAC has previously shared a website containing Hitler’s speeches and pointed his online followers towards a video asserting Hitler “never ordered the extermination of a single Jew”. Another, the group’s England director has also bemoaned the supposed decline of the British “gene pool”, writing on X: “By importing loads of sub Saharan Africans plus Muslims that inter breed the IQ is in severe decline.”
GBPAC’s founder and sole director Claire Bullivant told this outlet Advance UK’s funds were “not being transferred to GBP Corporation Limited or to Claire Bullivant personally, nor is the Great British PAC acquiring that sum [£432,000 outlined in the last accounts] as part of the arrangements between the organisations.”
“We understand that Ben Habib and the Advance UK College will determine how any remaining funds should properly be applied, including potentiall…