LONDON (AP) — It’s a photo that sent a shock through British politics: Elon Musk flanked by British politician Nigel Farage and a wealthy financier, in front of a gilded painting of a young Donald Trump.
Taken this week at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, the image suggested that Musk, a key player in the new US administration, could soon turn his disruptive attention to Britain.
Farage, Trump’s leading British champion, confirmed talks were underway about Musk making a sizeable donation to Farage’s Reform UK party. largest political donation in British history. The reports have led to calls to quickly tighten Britain’s rules on political donations.
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“We did talk about money,” Farage told broadcaster GB News after the meeting with Musk. “That is a negotiation that we will have again. He is not against giving us money. He hasn’t quite decided yet whether he will do that.”
Britain has strict limits on how much political parties can spend on elections, but they can accept unlimited donations as long as the donors are British voters or companies registered in Britain. Musk’s social network X has a British branch, Twitter UK Ltd., with a registered address in London.
Critics say this is a loophole that allows foreign influence in British politics. Voting watchdog the Electoral Commission is calling for changes including limiting the amount a company can donate so it cannot raise more money than it earns in Britain.
“It is crucial that British voters have confidence in the financing of our political system,” Vijay Rangarajan, chairman of the committee, told The Guardian. “The system needs to be strengthened and we have been calling for legal changes since 2013 to protect the electoral system from foreign interference.”
Britain’s center-left Labor Party promised to tighten rules on political donations during the summer election campaign, although no legislation is planned for the coming year. Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s spokesman Dave Pares said on Wednesday that work was already underway to “strengthen existing safeguards” against “inadmissible proxy donations”.
Both the Labor government and right-wing opposition Conservatives are trying to figure out how to deal with Musk, who has taken a keen interest in Britain – and seemingly formed a strong dislike for Starmer.
Musk often posts on Matter protesters. Musk has compared Britain’s efforts to stamp out online disinformation to the Soviet Union, and over the summer anti-immigrant violence in the United Kingdom tweeted that “civil war is inevitable.”
Farage has echoed some of these themes in his own social media posts and in his party’s anti-woke agenda, which includes pledges to cut immigration, scrap green energy targets and to leave the Convention on Human Rights.
Formed in 2021, Reform UK is the latest in a series of small hard-right parties led by Farage that have had limited electoral success but outsized influence on British politics. Farage’s opposition to the European Union prompted the country to vote to leave the bloc in 2016, a seismic political and economic break with Britain’s nearest neighbors.
Reform UK won just five of the 650 seats in the House of Commons at the July election, but came second in dozens of other seats, taking 14% of the vote. Now it is pushing for rapid growth, trying to professionalize its previously shaky organization and organizing meetings in the United Kingdom to recruit new members.
Farage, a strong communicator who has embraced TikTok and other platforms, wants to emulate Trump’s success by using the power of personality and social media to reach the “bro vote” – young men who are traditionally less likely to show up during elections.
Farage told GB News that Musk “has already given me significant help – understanding the process from start to finish and reaching out to dissatisfied communities who, quite frankly, feel like there is no point in voting for anyone.”
The electoral power of social media was recently on display in Romania, where far-right candidate Călin Georgescu came from nowhere to win the first round of the presidential election in November, helped in part by a flood of TikTok videos promoting his campaign. Amid accusations that Russia had organized the social media campaign to support Georgescu-Roegen, the Romanian Constitutional Court canceled the second round of the presidential election two days before it was due to take place.
As Britain’s Conservative Party tries to recover from its worst election result since 1832, Farage dreams of making Reform the main opposition – or even the government – after the next election, due in 2029.
That’s a long shot, but Rob Ford, a professor of political science at the University of Manchester, said a major donation from Musk “could have disruptive potential in all kinds of ways.”
He said Musk’s money would give Reform “an opportunity to try to build a serious campaign organization, something they have generally lacked.”
“It certainly adds a new wild card to the deck of cards in British politics,” said Ford. “We have had no shortage of surprising developments here in recent years. And maybe this is next.”
