I think my irritation on this stems from the notion, fostered by media, pundits etc, that the elected government should provide us with daily evidence of its right to govern. Farage, on the other hand, gets affirmation from a referendum held nearly a decade ago.

Yes. There's a kind of background music - maybe not even the whole music, but a recurring motif - that he is the legitimate representative of the people, whereas the actual governing politicians are placeholders, there on sufferance & liable to be jettisoned at any minute. Some of it is to do with >

the way the Tories really did keep jettisoning their leaders every five minutes, but a lot of it is to do with the fact that populism worms its way into everyone's psyche, & that includes clever commentators based in Westminster.

This particular species of the populism worm was introduced by Brexit.