The leader of Restore Britain has sparked fury after describing the Dunblane school shooting, in which 16 children and their teacher were killed, as “one murder” — prompting a father of one of the victims to call him “ignorant and selfish”.
Rupert Lowe, the MP for Great Yarmouth, made the remarks during an appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast. He was criticising the UK’s ban on handguns, which was introduced after the 1996 massacre at Dunblane Primary School. “There was a murder in Dunblane,” Lowe said. Host Joe Rogan clarified with Lowe that the ban was due to “one murder”, and the Restore Britain leader repeated that was the case.
“Rupert Lowe called Dunblane massacre 'one murder' on Joe Rogan podcast, sparking outrage from victims' families and politicians.”
Kenny Ross, whose daughter Joanna was one of the 16 pupils killed, told BBC Scotland News he was not surprised at the “ignorance of some people” around the shooting. “They don’t realise how devastating it was. But now we have a safer society because there is no longer private gun ownership,” he said. “Thirty years have passed and people forget what we had to go through. I wouldn’t want anyone else to go through that. It’s people like him that are very ignorant and selfish.”
Lowe, who founded Restore Britain after he was suspended from Reform UK, said his father’s pistols had been taken away after the shooting, and that society in the UK needed “radical change” and to “release the individual”.
Conservative MSP Stephen Kerr, whose Mid Scotland & Fife constituency includes Dunblane, said Lowe’s comments were “astonishingly insensitive and profoundly disrespectful to the victims”. He added: “To describe Dunblane as ‘one murder’ is not simply inaccurate – it diminishes one of the darkest days in Scotland’s modern history. There is no excuse for reducing the murder of 16 children and their teacher to ‘one murder’.” Kerr criticised the “casual” and “ignorant” manner in which Lowe spoke, saying: “That tragedy changed Scotland forever. To speak so casually about an event that still causes such profound pain is both callous and indefensible.”
A spokesperson for Restore Britain said: “Rupert was clearly referring to one incident.”
On 13 March 1996, gunman Thomas Hamilton entered the gym hall of Dunblane Primary School carrying four legally-owned handguns and 743 rounds of ammunition. He murdered 16 children and their teacher Gwen Mayor. Another 12 children and three adults were shot or injured. All but two of the children were aged just five and six years old.
Lowe, in the podcast, also repeated unsubstantiated claims about Muslims, the judiciary, and the BBC. His two-hour screed, which touched on “Muslims hating dogs” and the Empire being “a force for good”, was described by a critic as “far-right”. But it was his minimisation of the Dunblane tragedy that has drawn the most anger — and calls for an apology that have so far been ignored.