“At the general election, [Nigel Farage’s] latest startup, Reform, won five seats from 4,117,610 votes — nearly half a million more votes than the Liberal Democrats, who ended up with 71 seats. Such are the vagaries of Britain’s first-past-the-post system.” Iain Martin in “The Times”
Yes FPTP stinks but it wasn’t its “vagaries” which gave the LibDems their triumph , it was brilliant election planning. The Party studied the constituency make ups and identified those where that make up gave them a chance of winning. They focused their efforts entirely on these constituencies – primarily in areas where the social construct would not be likely to turn to Labour but could be persuaded to vote LibDem, and they did.
The LibDems vote share national roughly matched their seat share. An unprecedented result in British politics. Effectively an outcome that a fairer voting system than FPTP would have given them. It helped that Ed Davey turned himself from a bit of a nonentity into a likeable figure.
Reform, an insubstantial political brand but a refuge for (mostly) disaffected Tory voters, had no local structure to bring out the votes and win more than a handful of seats. Yes they should have had more MPs (as should the Greens) but the local organisation wasn’t there. Will Mr Musk’s millions help Reform create that structure? It’s perfectly possible. Combine that with Farage’s charisma and familiarity and they become a genuine threat.
Paddy’s Blogs in a crazy world 
Reform is similar to a bad rash of whatever form. If you scratch it often enough it will flare up. The rash goes away if you apply the correct remedy. So with politics. Farage managed to get the attention of the intellectually challenged and the knee-jerk brigade in deprived areas of Britain where folks feel abandoned.
The idea that Reform could gain political traction by working hard on local issues is unlikely to happen. After all, all that involves pressing the flesh and dedication. Farage becoming PM is simply frightening the children. He spends his time wooing Trump not the voters of Essex.
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