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‘I had one man spit at my poster’: Makerfield deeply divided as byelection campaign draws to a close (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 1 day ago by Veserr@sh.itjust.works to c/uk_politics@feddit.uk

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[–] tal@lemmy.today 2 points 21 hours ago

The voters of this long-neglected corner of Greater Manchester will on Thursday decide whether Labour’s love-bombing has paid off in the most consequential UK byelection in decades.

While the “Burnham bounce” is real, the result may be decided by another party entirely: the rightwing Restore Britain.

Rupert Lowe’s hardline party, which calls for the death penalty and mass deportations, is predicted to win about 7% of the vote in what would be an astonishing result for an outfit that launched only four months ago. It would also be enough to stand in the way of Reform.

A Guardian analysis shows Restore has bought more Facebook and Instagram advertising on Makerfield than any other party – and more than double the number of Reform.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/2209256/elon-musk-nigel-farage-restore-britain

Now Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, has accused the world's richest man, the billionaire Elon Musk, of trying to divide the right in the UK by supporting Mr Lowe.

Restore Britain has fielded a candidate in the knives-edge Makerfield by election, and is standing on a series of policies including mass remigration and increasing the availability of energy.

The tech-tycoon shared a post by Mr Lowe on his social media platform X, on the subject of the by-election, accompanied by the comment: "Restore Britain."

It prompted furious backlash from Mr Farage, who was once supported by Mr Musk before a spat between Mr Lowe - then one of his MPs - led to his ejection from Reform UK.

The SpaceX and social media platform owner then disavowed ReformUK and threw his support behind Mr Lowe's outfit.

Speaking to The Telegraph, Mr Farage said Andy Burnham - the Labour candidate for the seat - would be "delighted".

He said: "Elon Musk has decided he will try to split the Right of British politics as best he can. This is supporting a party that’s one man with a social media account. Quite what he’s trying to achieve, I have no idea."

If Restore does act as a spoiler vote and if Burnham does actually become PM and performs better in the next general election than Starmer would have, then Elon Musk will have arguably managed to, within a few years, tip the US presidential election to the populist right (he provided a massive chunk of Trump's campaign funds) and the UK government away from the populist right. He's quite a busy little beaver.