Nigel Farage loses 50,000 followers after Twitter crackdown

Nigel Farage at a Leave Means Leave rally at Central Hall in London - Credit: PA

A Twitter crackdown on supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory has seen Nigel Farage lose almost 50,000 followers.

Analysis of data by social media analytics website Social Blade shows that the Reform UK leader lost 49,000 followers in a single week after Twitter suspended 70,000 QAnon accounts following the US Capitol riots, Left Foot Forward has revealed.

The website revealed Farage’s followers increased on a weekly basis throughout 2020, with a whopping 10,000 deciding to follow him in the first week of January.

Farage supported Donald Trump throughout his presidency and regularly praised him on US media and at his rallies.

QAnon is an unfounded conspiracy theory which claims Trump is fighting against a Satan-worshipping paedophile elite.

Nigel Farage has never expressed support for QAnon and there is no suggestion that he supports it privately. He also condemned the storming of the Capitol, which could have contributed to the loss of followers.

Ring-wing figures around the world suffered similar drops in supporters.

In Australia, the Guardian reported that right-wing politician Pauline Hanson lost 2,500 followers and other members of her party lost between 1,000 and 2,000.

Boris Johnson lost 6,000 on the Saturday after the storming and 2,000 on the Sunday. Priti Patel, Liam Fox and James Cleverly all lost a few hundred supporters in the relevant week.

The centre-left politicians Left Foot Forward analysed did not experience a fall in followers. Keir Starmer, Jacinda Ardern, Anthony Albanese and Joe Biden all increased their followers that week.