After Germany, Elon Musk turns to UK to prop far-right Nigel Farage against Starmer

After bankrolling Donald Trump’s election in the United States, promising to oust Justin Trudeau in Canada, and endorsing far-right AfD in Germany, billionaire Elon Musk has geared its regime change juggernaut towards the United Kingdom.

In the UK, world’s richest person Musk has made it clear that he supports far-right party Reform UK and its leader Nigel Farage over Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer of Labour Party or the Conservative Party in the Opposition.

Earlier this month, Musk met Farage —a longtime friend and supporter of Trump— at Mar-a-Lago and they entered into talks for Musk donating potentially to the tune of $100 million to Reform UK.

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Just ahead of the New Year’s Eve, Musk capped his interference in British politics on Sunday (December 29) when he made it clear yet again that he has his eyes set on the UK. In response to a call for investments by Scottish leaders, Musk said Starmer’s policies were not attractive to investors.

“Very few companies will be willing to invest in the UK with the current administration,” said Musk on X, the social media platform that he bought and turned into a campaign platform for Trump and fellow far-right figures in the world.

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While Musk’s comment on Sunday might appear to be mere criticism of a government, the context makes it clear that the UK is the next political battleground where Musk has decided to get involved. Throughout 2024, Musk has criticised and threatened Starmer’s government and has supported and emboldened far-right groups and movements in the UK.

‘UK absolutely needs Reform’

Throughout this year, Musk has waded into British domestic affairs, which involved an open threat to Starmer of a civil war in the UK. He has also openly said that he would prefer to see Starmer’s government overthrown and replaced by Farage’s Reform UK.

On X, Musk has said that the UK “absolutely” needs Farage’s Reform UK party at the helm.

The remark was essentially a declaration of Musk’s intent to oust Starmer — just like he helped Trump defeat Democratic Party’s nominee Kamala Harris and similar to his commitment to see Trudeau ousted in Canada and Olaf Scholz in Germany.

After wrongful identification of a person as an immigrant in a case of murder triggered far-right anti-immigrant riots across the UK, Musk jumped into the ring and supported the mobs and slammed Starmer for taking strict action against violent mobs. He threatened Starmer with a civil war.

In one threat that forced the British Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to respond, Musk said that a “civil war is inevitable” in the UK. The PMO said there was “no justification” for the comment.

As Starmer cracked down on mobs and hate speech, Musk dubbed the UK under Starmer as “Soviet Union”.

In another instance when British authorities opened an investigation into a post on X by a conservative journalist, he said that “Britain is turning into a police state”. In yet another instance, when farmers protested against Starmer’s policies, Musk said the UK was going “full Stalin” under the Labour government.

In response to not being invited to an investment summit, Musk said, “I don’t think anyone should go to the UK when they’re releasing convicted paedophiles in order to imprison people for social media posts.”

Farage has also openly said that Musk wants to help him win.

“He wants to help us, he’s not opposed to the idea of giving us money, provided we can do it legally through UK companies,” said Farage this month.

Last month, in open endorsement of seeing Starmer’s ouster, Musk endorsed a petition for fresh elections in the UK and dubbed Starmer’s government “tyrannical police state” and said Reform UK should win fresh elections.

Farage has already made waves

Even though Farage’s Reform UK only has five MPs in the 650-member House of Commons of the British Parliament, the party has made waves in the British politics.

In the 2024 parliamentary elections in which the Labour scored a landslide victory, Farage and Reform UK were the biggest factors.

Even though the Labour won a landslide victory with 411 MPs against Conservatives’ 121, the margin of victory was the slimmest since World War II.

In 2019, the Labour had suffered the worst defeat in decades when it won 262 against Conservatives’ 365 seats. However, the Labour bounced back in 2024 with one of the biggest victories in decades. Yet the party only scored 1.5 per cent votes more. Then, how did it score such a huge victory? Well, it was because of Farage and Reform UK.

Between 2019 and 2024 elections, the Labour vote share only increased by 1.5 per cent, but the vote share of Conservatives fell from 44 per cent in 2019 to 24 per cent in 2024 as Farage’s Reform UK snatched a large chunk of right-wing voters.

In an analysis in The Spectator, Fraser Nelson noted that at least 145 Conservative MPs lost just because of Farage’s Reform UK eating into conservative vote. This way, Farage had essentially propped Starmer by defeating Conservatives.

“There’s just Farage – who enters parliament with just four other MPs. Reform UK’s main effect in this election has been to split the conservative vote and, in so doing, open up more constituencies to the Labour and the Lib Dems. Jacob Rees-Mogg was the highest profile of at least 145 Tories who would have won had Reform voters gone to the Conservatives,” noted Fraser.

Just like in the United States, the far-right populism has eroded the base for mainstream conservatives in the UK.

In 2024 elections, Farage beat the Conservatives. In the next elections, scheduled to be held in 2029, Farage would count on Musk’s support to repeat the far-right wave in the UK that Musk unleashed in the United States to prop Trump. With Musk’s help, Farage is looking forward to becoming the Trump of the UK. For Musk, Farage in the UK would be one of the many allies in his far-right universe.