[pjc50]

Elon vs Reform UK is extremely funny, because Reform is the wholly owned pet project of Richard Tice. A local real estate guy who's a mere millionaire and unimpressed at a foreign billionaire trying to run him over with superior money.

[notahacker]

Nah, it's even funnier than that. It's majority owned by Farage the guy Elon wanted to oust, with Tice holding the rest, because as you say he's a money man whose pet project is giving Farage power.

Also, even Farage's most implacable opponents would concede that he's by far the most effective campaigning MP in the UK, as well as an avid Trump supporter, so dumping him would be a hilarious own goal if it was even possible especially when it's dumping him for not endorsing a football hooligan. It would also be history repeating itself since Farage's old party went from winning elections to being a complete irrelevance when Farage "retired" and the hooligans joined...

[graemep]

Did he want to dump Farage?

I thought he wanted Farage to let Tommy Robinson join reform in return for a large donation.

> It would also be history repeating itself since Farage's old party went from winning elections to being a complete irrelevance when Farage "retired" and the hooligans joined

IIRC the trigger for Farage to leave that party (he had already resigned as leader) was the new party leader wanted to form an alliance with Tommy Robinson's lot.

[jordanb]

> Did he want to dump Farage?

He wanted Farage to bend all the way over. Farage refused so Elon tried to oust him, completely misunderstanding that the Reform party is Farage. It'd be like if Elon had gotten in a spat with Trump during the election and tried to swap him out for Vivek as the head of MAGA.

[zfg]

Musk turned on Farage: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c70ep8lp4jjo

Which came as a surprise to Farage who had previously welcomed and endorsed Musk's desire to interfere in UK politics: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1kez8d2dygo

[pjc50]

It's remarkable how much both Trump and Farage are cults of personality. I don't think they could easily be replaced. I wonder if Brexit would have happened if Farage hadn't survived his plane crash? Or would the media elect another figurehead to put on all the talk shows?

[HighGoldstein]

> I wonder if Brexit would have happened if Farage hadn't survived his plane crash? Or would the media elect another figurehead to put on all the talk shows?

Seeing as the difference was 1.89%, even marginally less effective campaigning would've doubtless resulted in a vote to remain in the EU.

[rsynnott]

Almost certainly not, given how close the vote was.

[graemep]

Is there are cult of personality around Farage? He is an effective campaigner as previous comments said, but its not personal charisma or adulation.

On the other hand Trump supporters so seem to think he is absolutely wonderful - some sort of messiah.

[pjc50]

The evidence is the chain of parties that Farage has been through. The support follows him, leaving the previous party as an empty shell.

[ChocolateGod]

Farage is a great speaker, and is extremely good at making what he's saying seem the truth, even if it's not so.

But it's far from the support people have for Trump.

[tim333]

Farage is quite reasonable on many policy positions also and reflects the views of quite a lot of the British public who would prefer traditional values, less immigration and the like. While I don't think I'd vote for him personally he has a good chance of being the next PM.

[graemep]

I think its also that people greatly dislike the big parties, and have turned away from the Blair/Cameron "centrist" consensus.

AT the last election the parties that got the biggest increases in their share of the vote were Reform and Green. Two very different parties and they have little in common other than not being Labour or the Conservatives. I suspect they would have done even better without a FPTP system.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2024/uk/results (scroll down to see a graph of changes in vote percentage of votes cast).

[ChocolateGod]

Reform support is too broad geographically and demographically that Farage has very little chance of being the next PM, unless the UK changes from FPTP. They take votes away from the Conservatives much more than they do Labour. This is why Cameron and Boris both buckled to UKIP/BrexitParty/Reform, but Starmer doesn't need to.

FPTP also benefits parties with strong regional hotspots, such as Labour in cities.

[rsynnott]

Yeah, they're quite _different_. I'd call Farage very good at what he does (lying, largely), but he doesn't have the same sort of cult of personality as Trump (or for that matter Musk).