Nigel Farage

Wahey, no more immigrants! Can't Barrage The Farage!

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“”Nigel Farage has sent a letter to Nigel Farage saying 'I resign'. And Nigel Farage has responded to Nigel Farage saying 'I refuse'. That's the way it works there.

—Belgian MEP & EP Brexit Coördinator Guy Verhofstadt on the first time Farage resigned from his party.

Nigel Farage, (1964–) is just an ordinary bloke an oily tick, pub bore character, British Poujadist and (occasional) British politician who has whored himself out as a gobshite-for-hire to anyone who'll pay him at least £79. He was leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) from 2006-09 and again from 2010-16 (minus 18 days in September when Diane James was leader). He likes to blame immigration for everything, including traffic on the M4. At the 2024 general election on 4 July, Farage was finally elected as a Westminster MP (at the eighth attempt) for the Clacton constituency in Essex, and then visited the United States three times in the next two months because he was more useful for his friend Donald Trump than for his constituents.

Farage was active in the Brexit campaign—Herostratus for the 21^st century. He is without doubt the most successful failure in the history of British politics: seven times unelected to the Westminster parliament, including before the EU referendum. Without a useless debater like David Cameron, the Brexit referendum would not have even taken place. Cameron kicked the ball into his own net and like all good goal hangers, Farage claimed that he scored it.

Farage has written articles and opinion pieces for The Independent of all places, occasionally attracting the ire of some readers. In 2015, he began contributing regular blog posts to American far-right tabloid of ill repute, Breitbart.com. Breitbart London's managing editor, Raheem Kassam, acted as Farage's "campaign manager", roommate and steam room companion.^{[No, not The Onion]} He joined Fox News as a contributor in 2017.

Farage left UKIP in December 2018 because it had become unmarketable, citing the new party leader's "obsession with Islam" and the appointment of Tommy Robinson as his reasons for doing so. He then set up his own Brexit party (later Reform UK), which enjoyed its largest success in the 2019 European Parliamentary Elections, after which it (temporarily) began to decline. Farage stepped down as party leader of Reform UK in March 2021 and announced that he was "quitting politics" for good, claiming that from now on he would focus on using social media to combat "the woke agenda".

Early life

Farage was born in 1964, the son of a stockbroker Guy Justus Oscar Farage, and enjoyed a typical British public school education at the prestigious Dulwich College. According to several of his teachers, Farage used to sing "gas em' all" at secondary school, and boasted that his initials were N.F. (National Front). Of course his defenders will say this was either youthful antics or a bogus claim from an unverifiable source. But seeing as now he refers to Romanians as criminals, the Polish as job-stealers, complains that London is "unrecognisable" as a British city (we all know what he meant), and supports Trump's Muslim ban, this qualifies as a "no shit, Sherlock" moment.

The working class hero archetype Farage aspires to is somewhat undermined by the fact that he followed his father into the world of finance, and worked for many years as a commodity broker. "In 1982, he joined Maclaine Watson, a traditional English commodities brokerage." In 1994, he started his own business, Farage Futures, which over eight years "made total net profits of £874,000". However, his next company, Farage Limited, "ended up insolvent."

"He’s always been a very City-oriented chap,” says Steven Spencer, an industry veteran."

Unsurprisingly, Farage was a big fan of Enoch Powell, describing him as his "political hero". He apparently begged the old man to help him win a seat in parliament in the 1990s, and also asked him to join UKIP, a request which Powell rejected not once, but twice! This is particularly ironic, since Farage would later be described as a "poundshop Enoch Powell".

Farage should always be reminded that he is a foreign interloper in Britain: his surname is of French Huguenot origin, derived from the French word farrage. QED.

Leadership

“”I welcome parody and satire in our politics.

Farage first stood down as Leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party in 2009 to contest Speaker John Bercow's safe Conservative seat of Buckingham, despite the long tradition that the other major parties not challenge the Speaker (who unlike in the United States is not a political figure as long as s/he/they hold the speakership) in elections. The effect of Farage standing was identical to Bercow standing unopposed. In 2015, Farage again resigned as party leader following his earlier promise that he would resign if he failed to become MP for South Thanet; he did not win the seat, coming in 2,812 votes behind Conservative Craig Mackinlay. However, as much as he "wanted to spend the summer fishing, walking, and ... in the [EU] where all hell is currently breaking loose", he agreed to remain as the leader of UKIP after the party chair rejected his resignation. Following the outcome of the European referendum, Farage once again resigned as leader of the party to begin his retirement from politics as he said that he had achieved his political ambition of British withdrawal from the EU. Following a chaotic leadership election, new member Diane James was elected leader despite neither wanting the job nor being the party favourite. Refusing to accept the election result, Streisand Farage again stepped in as "interim" UKIP leader. The public was hardly surprised; they were already cracking jokes about his inevitable return (in a repeat of his 2015 performance).

Farage has garnered criticism from retired Conservative politician Norman Tebbit (who agrees with him on most matters of substance), suggesting disaffection within the echelons of the party.

Raheem Kassam oversaw Farage's unsuccessful South Thanet campaign, followed by vicious party in-fighting. He shouldered much of the blame for Farage's loss from those within UKIP, who accused Kassam of prioritising Farage's courtship of the American far right over actually campaigning around his constituency.

Politics

“”Long underestimated, Mr. Farage has done more than any politician in a generation to yank British politics to the hard, nationalist right. He is one of the most effective and dangerous demagogues Britain has ever seen.

—Richard Seymour

HIV and immigrants

Nigel Farage attracted controversy when he suggested that HIV-positive migrants should not enter the country (a claim which is not supported by the evidence). During the Leader's debates on April 2015, he also suggested that the UK National Health Service should not pay cures for HIV-positive migrants.

"There are 7.000 diagnoses in this country every year for people who are HIV-positive. Which is not a good place for any of them to be, I know. But 60% of them are not British nationals. You can come into Britain from anywhere in the world and get diagnosed with HIV and get the retroviral drugs, that cost up to £25,000 a year, per patient. [...] What we need to do is to put the National Service there for British people and families who in many cases have paid into this system for decades."

Farage baseless (and disparaging) anti-immigrant views ultimately helps no one. First, he got the numbers wrong; according to official statistics of the UK National HIV surveillance, in 2015 the number of people diagnosed with HIV in UK was 6,043, barely over 6,000, and at least 40.7%, not 60%, of them were not born in UK. Antiretroviral treatment for all people with HIV lowers rates of HIV transmission, encourages earlier testing, promotes healthier behaviors, and keeps people healthy, all that contributes to lowering healthcare costs. Thus it's less likely to harm the nationals he's so keen on wanting to protect at the expense of immigrants. After all, the coalition government implemented antiretroviral costs because it saves money. Furthermore, his comment neglects to address far more significant factors of HIV transmission rates: lack of education, urban living (prompted by income inequality), and those with HIV lacking of proper care. It's unlikely Nigel Farage will call for expansion for anti-retroviral therapy and the pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) programs. Farage's comments have been condemned by those in his party as "plain wrong", and by charities that work with HIV/AIDS individuals as showing "an outrageous lack of understanding".

Aside from anything else, raising the spectre of HIV to attack immigration is a rather ugly red herring. Touting a 'National Service for british people and families' should not be paying for treatment of immigrants would surely mean more than just HIV infected individuals but extend to all medical treatments might require. singling out HIV specifically is leveraging the still existing stigma and fear of HIV/AIDS to further demonise immigrants as 'diseased' (an old anti immigrant tactic with a very unsavoury and racist past) at the expense of those living the disease.

Scotland

For "UK", read "England" and definitely not another country it united with. Whilst visiting Scotland in May 2013, Nigel Farage hid inside a pub in Edinburgh due to a protest attended by left-wing students, many of whom were English. Amongst the protestors were also the Scottish Labour party researcher April Cumming, a representative on the Young Labour National Committee James Moohan and a Labour Sabbatical Officer at Edinburgh University Max Crema. Nevertheless, Respect Party MP for Bradford West George Galloway duly accused the SNP of orchestrating the "anti-English mob". However, Mike Shaw, President of Edinburgh University Students' Association's Socialist Society, tweeted "as a proud Englishman, arrested yesterday for protesting, I dispute these claims." However, the fringe Radical Independence Campaign did help to organise the protest.

Farage also claims that the English are the biggest victims of racism, because of the Scottish National Party daring to exist.

Brexit

See the main article on this topic: Brexit

“”We've done it all without a single bullet being fired!

—Jo Cox might disagree

While technically still out of power, Farage was part of the triumvirate pushing the UK referendum on Brexit, alongst with Conservative Cabinet Ministers Boris Johnson and Michael Gove. He won millions of votes by basically going around the country and drinking pints with people.

To the surprise (again) of every sensible Labour voter, the Remain campaign lost by a slim margin. The funny thing? The only reason for the vote was that Cameron planned to use it as a political tool, like the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. (David Cameron: The man who turned off the United Kingdom by accident.) As Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to Remain with larger margins than England and Wales who voted to Leave, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon openly threatened secession once the results were announced.

US politics

Although he has made sure to steer clear of the worst of Donald Trump's rhetoric on grabbing women by the pussy, Muslim bans, and calling Mexicans drug dealers and rapists, Nigel Farage has appeared on Alex Jones' show discussing the negative legacy of Barack Obama, and his fellow Brexiter (-cum-borderline Birther) Boris Johnson claimed that Obama had "grudge" against Britain "because of Kenya and colonisation". Farage has also called Trump's claims of raping and sexually assaulting women as "alpha-male boasting", which prompted a harsh backlash from UKIP MEPs, with one senior figure saying that Farage was "contradicting himself [by] saying that what Donald Trump said about groping women was just alpha male banter" yet kicked up a fuss over the alleged assaults by migrants in Cologne, Germany, adding that "It's total hypocrisy to say it's OK if a rich, white man who's running for president does it."

Although claiming not to support Trump completely, Farage has noted similarities with his and Trump's "concerns", especially regarding immigration. In response to a reporter's question on the threat of a Trump presidency, Farage has stated that he would never vote for Hillary as she is crooked, whilst at the same time not commenting on whether he'd vote for Trump, saying that Trump would not be "as extreme in office as we might fear".

He then began working as a campaign adviser to Trump's campaign. Because apparently Brexit means deporting our useless politicians to the US (We're so sorry). After Trump won, he claimed credit for the victory and joked about him sexually assaulting Theresa May. Because he wasn't a terrible enough person already.

On 8^th November 2016, Farage said he would like a role in the future Trump administration as the US ambassador to the EU (as if they haven't had enough of him already!). Lo and behold, on the 22^nd of November 2016, president-elect Donald Trump thought out loud on Twitter that Farage be appointed as the British ambassador to the United States, arguing that "many people" would like to see this happen. There was, however, one small problem with this plan: the UK Government. Downing Street quickly responded to Trump's comments by saying "we already have an excellent ambassador to the US", fuck you very much. Farage has accused the current ambassador, Sir Kim Darroch, of being "a committed Europhile" and big-time Ukip donor Arron Banks said Darroch "spent his whole time greasing up to the Hillary campaign" during her presidential campaign. How diplomatic!

In February 2017, former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke tweeted "Farage will make a fine UK Prime Minister. Looking forward to that."

Russophilia

See the main article on this topic: Russia

RT was the media home for both Farage and UKIP during the period when Brexit was being debated. At one point Farage expressed his admiration for Vladimir Putin. A senior member of Farage's parliamentary staff, Kevin Ellul Bonici, "took part in a Russian smear campaign against the president of Lithuania who had criticized Putin."

Farage was a 'person of interest' as a possible intermediary due to his relationships with individuals connected to both the Trump campaign and Julian Assange, in the FBI investigation of Trump's possible collusion with Russia. Amidst interest in Russian government influence on American politics, Farage took this as an opportunity to instead turn people's attention towards a "Jewish lobby", calling them "very powerful".

The French connection

Farage has turned down Brexit support from Marine Le Pen in the past, accusing her of antisemitism and racism and even viewing her as detrimental to the Brexit cause. Prominent members of Vote Leave have also called upon Le Pen to be banned from the UK because of her far-right political views. This, despite the fact that UKIP has offered a pact in the European Parliament to the misogynist Holocaust denier and Polish MEP Robert Iwaszkiewicz (who said UKIP hated the Poles?!) in order to secure EU funding, and called Iwaszkiewicz's comments on beating women as "a joke".

In light of Farage turning up for Trump and campaigning for the 2016 presidential election, he was asked by a journalist on whether he intended to campaign for any French or German Eurosceptic parties in their respective 2017 elections. In response, a drunk Farage only mentioned the French Front National, led by Marine Le Pen, and said the following:

Look. I like Marine Le Pen. I've met her. I've had dinner with her. But I can't support her party, because it's a Vichyite rump and antisemitic. Her father is a ghastly old fascist. I think Marine wants to fuck me, you know. I think she wants to fuck me.

Farage, of course, denies all allegations. He would never want to have sex with a Frenchwoman!

Other views

Farage's libertarian attitude towards the War on Drugs and the decriminalisation of cannabis has attracted the ire of social conservatives such as Peter Hitchens. Farage also opposed the Iraq War from the onset. Farage himself has claimed he was a libertarian until he became a father, when he started to devote more time moaning about Miley Cyrus' allegedly negative influence on his daughter.

Unlike other hard-line Brexiteers, Farage seems to be supportive of the Benn Act, which would legally force any Prime Minister to ask for an extension from the EU in the event that no deal has been agreed. This contrast is very stark, with Tories dedicated to labeling the act the 'Surrender Act' - most of all Boris Johnson, who repeated it more than a dozen times throughout a Marr interview, but the hatred of the act within the Tories was so severe that the 21 MPs within the Conservatives that voted for the act - the 'Tory Rebels' - had the whip withdrawn, and are now forced to sit as independent MPs. While it does make sense that Farage would like an extension, with him coming out and labeling Boris Johnson's Brexit deal 'not Brexit', it's still quite revealing that he would also prefer staying in the EU longer than to leaving without a deal - something a lot of his Brexit Party membership would probably disagree with.

You sit on a throne of lies

The voting public continue to put their faith in people like this for whom "my word" means absolutely nothing.

• If you're on a train with Nigel "I'm not a racist, but fucking Romanians" Farage in the carriage, he gets all bothered when he can't listen in on your conversation. Even though his kids speak German. Nigel Farage also admitted he constantly chanted TWO WORLD WARS ONE WORLD CUP at his German wife before his 17-year marriage collapsed. The man has turned the United Kingdom into an allegory of his failed marriage.

• That's right, this jackanapes was allowed into the European Parliament. And he's been the main cause of European antipathy for the UK in the last couple of years. Considering UKIP's opposition to the European Union, one assumes they would be attending the European Parliament every day to inform on/thwart the socialist EU agenda! Er, not quite…

Farage ranks #1 on the least-active UK MEPs, and of the other 12, they are either supporters of UKIP or Eurosceptic Conservatives. A rather bizarre stunt by the Remain and Leave campaign, which involved Bob Geldof and Farage chasing each other down the River Thames highlights the fact that, as Greenpeace had previously noted:

"Over the three years that Nigel Farage was a member of the European Parliament Fisheries Committee, he attended one out of 42 meetings. Greenpeace research […] shows that during the three major votes to fix the flaws of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), Nigel Farage was in the building but failed to vote in favour of improving the legislation." — Kate Blagojevic

• UKIP make a lot of noise about financial probity, so it will come as no surprise that Farage has reneged on his promise to publish his MEP allowances quarterly, as debated at length with Ian Hislop on Have I Got News For You while repeatedly calling Denis MacShane a "scumbag" (which is fair enough).

• I'll resign if I don't win South Thanet. He did, indeed, "resign"… then quickly un-resigned, and carried on as if nothing happened. Figel Nirage is tipped to be the next UKIP leader.

• Farage declared that a 52-48 result (for Remain) would be "unfinished business" and grounds for a second referendum. Funny how he dropped that issue once his side became the 52%.

• Oh mate, it's gonna be great! They're planning on building one hospital a week with £350 mil they're sending to the EU! Except they don't actually send that much to the EU… You do realise, voters, that he's still a Member of the European Parliament. Europe has little-to-no say on fiscal policy in Britain. He was never in a position to keep that pledge, but "Leave" voters fell for it like children in a sweet shop. (He has openly said he would privatise the NHS, how people missed this is beyond insane.) Already a broken promise, not even 24 hours in.

• He doesn't even make a good nationalist. You'd think he'd be dying to live in the newly-independent UK. What's the point if he's going to move to America so he can hoover Trump's penis carpets? "We would certainly never think of visiting the United States and telling the US public how to vote…" (Not sure he gets to complain about bankers, given that he was one.)

• This supposed über-patriot tried to get around Downing Street via the White House. To put it another way: he leveraged a foreign government's power to influence policy in the UK Government. Namely by having Trump pressure them into making him an ambassador. And no one should ever let him forget his craven, toadying call for May to apologise to Trump (on the UK's behalf!) because some officials insulted him.

• "We won it without a bullet being fired"… At anyone I care about. It was a Remain-supporting Labour MP who was gunned down last year, not a Kipper. Then Farage attacked the widower of politician Jo Cox, murdered by a far-right terrorist: Farage accused Brendan Cox of being an "extremist" who supported violence, saying with wild inaccuracy, "He backs organisations like Hope Not Hate, who masquerade as being lovely and peaceful, but actually pursue violent and undemocratic means." (Hope not Hate are not violent extremists though they have investigated extremism in Ukip.) Farage's opponents have more reason to fear, yet he and his cronies are terrified of leaving the house. This is the same Nigel Farage who pretended "liberals" had cut the brakes on his car. His private plane was taken out by a liberal ground-to-air missile.

So many glittering alternate realities

Farage was injured in a plane crash on May 6^th 2010. This was due to the plane, a PZL-104 Wilga 35A for plane nerds, being an Eastern European immigrant. Another time, all of the wheels fell off his car whilst driving in an alleged assassination attempt as police stated all nuts had been deliberately unscrewed on all tyres.

Brexit party

After quitting UKIP over its new-found fixation with Muslims under Gerard Batton, he joined the new Brexit Party which was founded in January 2019, apparently being lined up to take over as leader if his services were required in the event of a delayed Brexit or second referendum. This party proved to be just as racist as UKIP: leader Catherine Blaiklock quit in March 2019 after tweets that were anti-Islam and referenced racist white genocide conspiracy theories, and treasurer Michael McGough was sacked in April for antisemitic posts.

Post-Brexit

In 2020 as Brexit seemed a certainty he hunted around for new issues to keep himself in the public eye. His focus for several months was the pursuit of immigrants, attacking asylum seekers and migrants who risked a dangerous sea crossing from mainland Europe to the UK. Farage promoted the Great Replacement theory in 2019, and has engaged in antisemitism using dog whistles about racial demographics.

He received a visit from the police after ignoring COVID-19 lockdown restrictions to travel around hassling immigrants. A trip to speak at a Trump rally in the US that seemed to contravene American anti-COVID restrictions was also criticised, when he received special permission to enter the country; he was also accused of violating quarantine rules on his return. Perhaps as a response he has become a critic of restrictions intended to prevent people dying of COVID. He has also promoted a possibly antisemitic theory that COVID is being used by "globalists" (often a codeword for Jews) to promote their secret agenda.

Farage and his lieutenant Richard Tice took this to its logical conclusion by transforming the short-lived Brexit Party into a new anti-lockdown party, Reform UK. (Not to be confused with Laurence Fox's Reclaim party, or the American Reform Party founded by Ross Perot.) Farage and Tice launched it in an article in the Daily Telegraph on 2 November 2020, and applied to the Electoral Commission for the name change (still pending approval at time of writing); the party also wants reform of Britain's electoral system so it can get some MPs. He quit the party in March 2021.

In July 2021 it was reported that Farage would host a Monday to Thursday evening show on the currently struggling GB News, after he joined the network in June 2021. In February 2024, Farage stated that alleged human trafficking rapist Andrew Tate is an "important voice for men" who raised awareness about "men becoming feminine".

Something that sums it all up

“”Behind that image is someone who isn't bright. I spent two hours trying to explain to him the difference between 'it's' with an apostrophe and 'its' without and he just flounced out the office saying, 'I just don't understand words.'

—Alan Sked, UKIP founder, on Nigel Farage

See also

• Enoch Powell — Farage's much more intelligent intellectual predecessor.
• Ron Paul — He's Ron Paul done the English way: badly and on a budget!
• Geert Wilders — I will not allow the government to raise the minimum age for pensions! *literally an hour after the results come in* Nope, pension age is not a breaking point.

Videos

• Careful, Nige.
• This guy gets it.

External links

• UKIP if you want to, the lady's not for snoring
• Nigel Farage's Teeth Facing Deportation for Not Being White
• We will not go gently into the night!
• Things You Probably Don't Know About Nigel Farage, via BuzzFeed