An “emergency announcement” during the afternoon of 3 June 2024 confirmed that Nigel Farage would replace Richard Tice as leader of Reform UK and become the right-wing populist party’s candidate for the left-behind coastal constituency of Clacton in Essex, which once voted in Britain’s first UK Independence Party (UK) MP during an October 2014 by-election. This unexpected move by Farage, contrary to earlier statements, according to which he would not stand for the House of Commons and instead devote more of his time and effort to the Trump Presidential campaign in America, sent shockwaves through the Conservative Party, whose members saw this as action as depleting their voter base and consolidating a seemingly inevitable Labour victory in the forthcoming General Election.
Almost everything that Farage does and says is newsworthy and induces strong emotions, one way or another. It so happened, therefore, that he was splattered with a McDonald’s banana milkshake outside a pub in Clacton, just two days later. Twenty-five-year-old Victoria Thomas Bowen, referred to in media reports as a model and a Corbynite, has been charged with “assault by beating and criminal damage” and will have her fate decided at Colchester Magistrates’ Court on 2 July 2024.
Farage has had mixed fortunes in previous parliamentary elections. Under Britain’s first-past-the-post electoral system, he stood for UKIP in five General Elections (Salisbury, 1997; Bexhill and Battle, 2001; South Thanet, 2005; Buckingham, 2010; South Thanet, 2015) and two by-elections (Eastleigh, 1994; Bromley and Chislehurst, 2006), but failed to make any headway. He fared far better under the proportional representation system for electing Members of the European Parliament, being elected MEP for South East England as UKIP candidate in 1999, 2004, 2009, and 2014, and finally as Brexit Party candidate in 2019. The Brexit Party was founded in November 2018, advocating a no-deal Brexit in the face of UK’s turbulent departure from the EU, and is the precursor of Reform UK. In his triumphant closing speech in the European Parliament on 29 January 2020, Farage felt sufficiently empowered to taunt fellow MEPs: “You’re not laughing now, are you?”
Nigel Paul Farage is one of a growing cohort of populist European politicians who can generate considerable support from people who feel disenfranchised by liberal “elites” and have come to distrust the political establishment. He was born in April 1964 at Farnborough Hospital, close to his childhood home in Downe, once a village in Kent and now part of the London Borough of Bromley, the son of a stockbroker who left the family when he was five. The surname Farage probably has Huguenot origins, by no means proven. More detailed genealogical information about Farage’s European roots can be found in Michael Crick’s ‘One Party after Another: The Disruptive Life of Nigel Farage’ (2022).
Farage attended Dulwich College, a public school in south London, from 1975 onward. Upon leaving school in 1982, he became a commodities trader in the London Metal Exchange before running his own metals brokerage firm. After working for Maclaine & Watson, a metals broker, from 1982 to 1986, he spent time at the City broking house of Rouse, and then setting up Farage Futures in 1993. For the record, Farage has been married twice-to an Irish nurse, who bore him two sons, and a German bond broker, who bore him two daughters- and his name has been linked with other women. Further details need not concern serious observers of the political scene.
Farage was a Eurosceptic from the onset, even voting Green in the 1989 European Parliament elections on the grounds that they were the only truly Eurosceptic party standing. He joined the Conservative Party in 1978, only to leave in 1992 after the signing of the Maastricht Treaty to become a founding member of UKIP, which he led from September 2006 to November 2009 and again from November 2010 to 2016. He can be considered one of the principal movers behind the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, henceforth usually referred to as Brexit. A high point of his career came with the referendum on EU membership, following which he proudly declared that “dawn is breaking on an independent United Kingdom” in his victory speech on the morning of 24 June 2016.
Reform UK, technically a private limited company, is Farage’s latest political vehicle, set on a journey to “make Britain great again”, having been provided “the opportunity of a lifetime” by Brexit. As befitting its name, it seeks sweeping reforms of Britain’s economy, energy strategy, public sector, and institutions, unrestricted by “all the woke nonsense that is holding us back” and backed up by a “proper immigration policy.” In place of Net-Zero carbon emissions, Farage’s own Net-Zero ambitions thus relate to restricting immigration in all its forms. Cuts in taxes, government spending, and bureaucracy will stimulate the economy and rejuvenate the country and “secure Britain’s future as a free, proud and independent sovereign nation.” Multiculturalism and woke policies are out, while Britain’s Muslims remain a particular concern for Farage.
Despite his privileged upbringing, Farage identifies himself with the working classes of Britain. He is frequently depicted as a convivial and cheeky person, far from averse to a pint of beer or the smoke from a cigarette, who wouldn’t mind having both, at the same time, inside a pub if at all possible. He exudes charisma, appears supremely confident, speaks clearly and well, is committed to “free speech”, and says the things many folks desire to hear, regardless of any consequences, but also bruises easily when challenged. For the record, enthusiasts can turn to Farage’s two autobiographical works, Fighting Bull (2010) and The People Revolution: The Year That Changed Everything (2015), for further insights into his way of thinking. The latter title refers to the May 2014 European elections, when UKIP overtook both Conservative and Labour parties in popular appeal.
Farage’s views are unambiguous and repetitive, but he has often stopped short of discussing the details of how his aspirations are to be achieved. However, there is some hope for the future. The Reform UK “Contract”, in advance of its manifesto, is indeed the product of advice from “independent economists, think tanks and advisors on savings and costings”, and has 23 items for action, thereby adding weight to Farage’s proposals.
By his own admission, Farage does not expect his party to win the next General Election, but he rather seeks lead the “real opposition” to a Labour government. Whatever the eventual outcome, his entry into the parliamentary race will undoubtedly liven up a hitherto lacklustre, and at times tetchy, electoral campaign by the two main players. Whoever wins will automatically become a loser as they embark upon the thankless task of clearing up the sorry mess Britain currently finds itself in.
Ashis Banerjee