Is this a party or a company?

What is the fetish on the hard and far-right for political formations that present themselves as parties but appear to be at best support mechanisms for a few individuals?

Perhaps the most obvious example is the Party for Freedom (PVV), in the Netherlands, the literally one-man band that Geert Wilders founded in 2006. As noted on Wiki:

Geert Wilders is the only member of Party for Freedom; thus the party is ineligible for Dutch government funding, and relies on donations.^[17]

But there’s more, so much more. Or less:

In order to register for elections in the Netherlands, a political party needs to be an association (Dutch: vereniging), which can be founded by two or more members.^[152][153] The Vereniging Groep Wilders (Association Group Wilders) was founded by the natural person Geert Wilders and Stichting Groep Wilders (Foundation Group Wilders), of which Wilders is the only board member.^[154][155] The association was later renamed to Partij voor de Vrijheid (Party for Freedom).^[1] After the creation of the association, Wilders disabled new member registration, resulting in his remaining the sole member of the party.^[1][154]

The party is considered unique in Dutch politics in that it does not organise public party conferences and does not have local departments, a youth wing, or a research institute.^[1][154] Instead, PVV supporters have the option of financially donating to the party or signing up as unaffiliated volunteers during elections. Candidates are mostly handpicked by Wilders who also writes the PVV’s platform.

Former PVV politician Hero Brinkman unsuccessfully tried to lobby for the party to adopt a conventional membership system and a youth wing. However, Wilders has defended the party’s structure, stating that he does not want extremists to take over the PVV, while others have cited the example of the defunct Pim Fortuyn List party which shared many similar policies to the PVV but succumbed to factional infighting following the murder of its founder.^[156][157]

Commentators have also cited Wilders as one of the first party leaders to use web and social media messages to reach voters instead of traditional public campaigning such as public rallies or meet and greets.^[158]

But given no structures, no membership, no representation what is this entity? And, more importantly, what sort of person is attracted to support something, financially or with their time and activism, where their voice, their beliefs has no currency whatsoever? Elitism is the term that comes most readily to mind to describe this. 

Somewhat closer to home we see Reform in the UK, which has a somewhat different but not entirely dissimilar approach:

Reform is ultimately owned by Farage, but electoral and corporate filings show it has been mainly bankrolled by Tice, who has contributed about 80% of its declared funding in loans and donations since he took over in 2021.

And:

In its early days, The Brexit Party officially had three members, who were Farage, Tracey Knowles and Mehrtash A’Zami. The party opted for signing up registered supporters rather than members. Over 115,000 people paid up as supporters at their height. The party structure was criticised for not providing the party’s over 115,000 paying registered supporters^[138] with any voting power to influence party policy;^[139] Farage retained a high level of control over decision-making, including hand-picking candidates himself.^[139][140] Since 2021, the party has options to become a member, rather than a supporter.^[141]

Farage has said the party would largely be funded by small donations and that they raised “£750,000 in donations online, all in small sums of less than £500” in their first ten days. The party also accepts large donations, such as £200,000 donated by Jeremy Hosking, a former donor to the Conservative Party.^[142] He further said that the party would not be taking money from the key former UKIP funder Arron Banks.^[37][143] Farage personally faced questions during the 2019 electoral campaign after Channel 4 News revealed undeclared travel and accommodation benefits provided by Banks before Farage joined the Brexit Party, and on 21 May 2019 the European Parliament formally opened an investigation.^[144] In response to the reporting, the Brexit Party banned Channel 4 News from its events.^[145]

As well as:

As of February 2020,^[152] and probably since May 2020,^[146] Farage holds 8 of the 15 shares in The Brexit Party Ltd. As well as the leader and chairman, other leadership roles were assigned to Brian Monteith as Chief Whip in the European Parliament (before Brexit)^[153] and David Bull as health spokesperson during the 2019 election.^[154] In January 2021, former Conservative and then independent MSP Michelle Ballantyne joined the party and assumed the role of Leader of Reform UK Scotland.^[155]

Again, who would particularly wish to be a member of an organisation where power was so, well, centralised? More importantly, what does it tell us about this form of politics and how the hard and far right operates?