Nigel Farage is making waves again, as he tells Breitbart that the battle for social media dominance is heating up, with his Reform Party enjoying a commanding lead across various platforms. Farage attributes the surge in support to the work ethic and increasingly right-wing views of the youngest voters in the United Kingdom. In just three weeks of the General Election campaign since he resumed leadership of the party he founded, support has significantly increased.
Farage highlighted the stark contrast between Generation Z and Millennials. “Gen-Z is very different. Very different to Millennials,” he told Breitbart. “I see a lot more ambition, I see a lot more rejection of what they’re being indoctrinated with at school and university… In the weeks since I came back to do this, we’ve gone from three percent in the 18-24 vote to between 15-21 percent, depending on which pollster you look at. Either way, it’s a very rapid advance.”
Despite acknowledging that the era of Thatcherism has passed, Farage sees a resurgence of 1980s values among young people, who are more focused on ambition and success than their Millennial predecessors. “I see a lot of 1980s thinking in a growing number of young people. They’re quite ambitious, they want to get houses, they want to get well-paid jobs. They turn up at events I do, they’re all quite well turned out. It’s quite interesting, whereas the Millennials talk about work-life balance and things like that. There’s a big generational shift.”
Reform insiders credit some of this progress to the party’s significant advances on social media, much of which appears to be organic. British broadcaster Sky News compared the performance of the parties in the General Election and found that while Labour outspent all other parties combined on social media, it was Farage’s Reform Party that garnered the highest number of page interactions by a considerable margin.
The report highlighted the stark difference in spending and engagement. Labour spent £1.7 million on social media ads, resulting in just over half a million interactions. In contrast, Reform UK spent a mere £26,000 but achieved over one and a half million interactions on Facebook. Sky News also noted that 16 of the top 20 most ‘loved’ Facebook statuses posted by party leaders during this campaign belonged to Farage, underscoring his strong online presence.
Separately, The Guardian examined the performance of British political parties on TikTok and found a similar trend. Despite the British Parliament banning TikTok from its network over security concerns, it remains a vital tool for engaging Gen-Z voters. Here too, Farage dominates, with his posts outperforming those of all other parties and candidates. While Labour posts more frequently and claims more overall views, Reform’s content consistently achieves higher engagement per video, beating Labour by 30 percent on a per-video basis and outperforming Conservative posts by double.
Farage’s success in courting Gen-Z voters mirrors trends seen in other countries. In Germany, for example, the Green party, once the default choice for young voters, has seen a significant decline. Polls show that the top two parties supported by young voters are now both right-wing. In America, Gen-Z is increasingly turning to Donald Trump, with analysis suggesting their sense of irony shields them from the older generation’s disdain for Trump’s unconventional style. As reported by Breitbart News, Trump is now level with Biden among Gen-Z voters, a dramatic shift from previous elections when the youngest voters heavily favored the left.
This growing support for right-wing politics among the youngest voters marks a significant shift in political landscapes across the Western world. Farage’s ability to connect with Gen-Z and harness the power of social media illustrates the changing dynamics and the potential for a new era of conservative resurgence.
