[zwischenzug]

If Farage wins he is still subject to an investigation that could eject him from Parliament, over a 5m crypto gift/loan he received from an ex-pat donor that he did not declare.

Farage is looking to get a popular mandate to try and both draw attention away from that investigation, and justify keeping his position because "the people have spoken". The other parties don't want to undermine the investigation by taking part in an election which would be moot if he were found guilty anyway.

Farage is therefore punching on air, and has been reduced to arguing that a joke candidate with a bin on his head who claims to be from outer space is an "establishment" (aka "deep state") plant.

It's actually a smart move from the other parties. Without a serious "enemy" to fight, populists look foolish as their usual rhetorical moves have no bite.

[dofm]

> If Farage wins he is still subject to an investigation that could eject him from Parliament

He will win, of course.

But Parliament can't actually eject him. All they can do is enable the one mechanism that could: a constituency recall petition that needs 10% of his electorate to sign it, that triggers… a by-election he could lose.

If he runs and his constituency vote for him in that, he's their MP.

[Macha]

That is true, but while he is popular in his home turf, 10% is a low threshold for a figure as divisive as Farage, so seems pretty much inevitable, unless this pre-investigation-results by election kills the motivation.

Now would he win the second by election even with a finding of misconduct against him? He might very well. But the establishment parties (especially the Tories) will feel much better placed to challenge him if they have him being found to have conducted in dodgy behaviour.