Halal food at the wedding? Hard-right Restore leader's son marries daughter of Libyan academic

Restore Britain, a party led by former Reform MP Rupert Lowe which vows to reverse the "Islamisation of Britain", is receiving more public attention than ever.

Enthusiastically endorsed by South African-born billionaire and X owner Elon Musk, Restore has become a significant player in next month's Makerfield by-election, in which Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham is standing to be elected as a Labour MP. 

If he wins, he is expected to challenge Prime Minister Keir Starmer for the premiership.

A Survation poll late last week put Labour on 43 percent, Reform on 40 percent and Restore in third place on 7 percent. 

Much of Restore's momentum has come from the internet, particularly X, on which Lowe and other accounts associated with the party have hundreds of thousands of followers.

Restore has promised to reverse the "Islamisation of Britain", ban halal and kosher slaughter, and achieve "net-negative" migration levels through a strategy of mass deportation.

But Lowe is now being widely attacked by many of his own fans online, as well as others on the ethnonationalist right, over his son's marriage last weekend.

On Sunday, Lowe posted a photo on X of his son, Angus Lowe, with his new wife Yasmin Mezran at their wedding ceremony.

Outrage soon erupted online because of her heritage: she is the daughter of Karim Mezran, a respected Libyan-Italian academic who has previously written for Middle East Eye.

Numerous online accounts said they felt betrayed, especially after it was reported that halal meat was served at the wedding. 

Karim Mezran himself reposted a post saying that a halal option "was available for guests at the reception afterwards as many in attendance were Muslim. This is despite 'Official Restosxre Policy' to ban Halal Slaughter".

Karim Mezran is an academic who has often written about immigration and integration.

In the 2000s, the academic served as secretary-general of the Association of Italian Muslim Intellectuals, which made headlines in 2008 for holding prayers for Christians facing religious violence in India. 

In 2013, Mezran wrote a paper arguing that Muslims in Italy needed an "intesa", meaning agreement, with the Italian state. He argued that Muslims "are in search of an agreement with the state that would allow them to live and prosper within a legal framework that guarantees rights and duties".

"Unfortunately," Mezran wrote, "attempts at achieving such an agreement have come up against a wall of prejudice and fear from the Italian population, as well as a lack of courage and foresight on the part of Italian state institutions."

His paper argued in favour of a form of integration which could "lead to the type of pluralism and tolerance enshrined in the Italian constitution".

In October 2022, Mezran wrote that Italy risked damaging its relations with Middle Eastern countries if it "proceeds with a political strategy that effectively marginalizes Arabs and Muslims domestically".

He argued that: "Meloni’s government should carefully consider how it handles its nationalistic discourse to avoid any Islamophobic controversies that could ultimately spark a blowback of condemnations from its allies in the Arab world."

Mezran is currently the director of the North Africa Initiative and a resident senior fellow at the Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs at the Atlantic Council, an American think tank. 

In April 2025, after Pope Francis died, Mezran praised him for his "vocal standing behind the Palestinian plight -including multiple sermons on Gaza and near-daily calls with Gaza’s Christian leaders through the war".