Nigel Farage's Brexit Party Is Outspending Bigger Rivals On Facebook In A Push For Voters Over 40

Nigel Farage’s Brexit party was the top-spending political campaign on Facebook in Britain last week as it ramped up a push for the support of over-40 voters in the European elections. Widely perceived as a serious threat to Theresa May’s Conservatives, Farage’s new party spent £11,523 pushing its pro-Brexit messages on the UK’s most widely used social network, according to Facebook data — nearly twice as much as that of the main parties, Labour and the Tories. In total, the Brexit party has spent around £20,000 since it formally launched two weeks ago. In contrast, the Remain-supporting Change UK, another new party with big ambitions for next month’s European ballot, only just started its Facebook push today. Separate data reviewed by BuzzFeed News reveal that Farage’s new party has been given a significant publicity boost by Facebook users organically sharing news articles relating to the launch, without the Brexit party having to pay anything for it. A column written by Farage for the Daily Telegraph newspaper on the morning of the Brexit party launch on April 11 received more than 110,000 engagements on social media, making it the fourth-most-shared UK politics story of the last month, according to BuzzFeed News’ analysis of data from BuzzSumo, a company that tracks social sharing.