Nigel Farage

"Farage" redirects here. For other people with the surname, see Farage (surname).

Nigel Farage MP
Official portrait, 2024
Leader of Reform UK
Incumbent
Assumed office 3 June 2024
Chairman	Richard Tice Zia Yusuf
Deputy	David Bull and Ben Habib Richard Tice
Preceded by	Richard Tice
Previous party positions 1998–2024 Honorary President of Reform UK In role 6 March 2021 – 3 June 2024 Leader Richard Tice Preceded by Role established Succeeded by Role abolished Leader of The Brexit Party In role 22 March 2019 – 6 March 2021 Preceded by Catherine Blaiklock Succeeded by Richard Tice Leader of the UK Independence Party Acting 5 October 2016 – 28 November 2016 Chairman Paul Oakden Preceded by Diane James Succeeded by Paul Nuttall In office 5 November 2010 – 16 September 2016 Deputy David Campbell Bannerman Christopher Monckton Paul Nuttall Chairman Steve Crowther Preceded by Jeffrey Titford (Acting) Succeeded by Diane James In office 27 September 2006 – 27 November 2009 Deputy David Campbell Bannerman Chairman John Whittaker Paul Nuttall Preceded by Roger Knapman Succeeded by The Lord Pearson of Rannoch President of Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy In office 20 July 2004 – 1 July 2019 Served with Hanne Dahl Francesco Speroni David Borrelli Preceded by Jens-Peter Bonde Succeeded by Office abolished Chairman of the UK Independence Party In office 1998 – 22 January 2000 Leader Michael Holmes Preceded by Alan Sked Succeeded by Mike Nattrass
Member of Parliament for Clacton
Incumbent
Assumed office 4 July 2024
Preceded by	Giles Watling
Majority	8,405 (18.3%)
Member of the European Parliament for South East England
In office 10 June 1999 – 31 January 2020
Preceded by	Constituency established
Succeeded by	Constituency abolished
Personal details
Born	Nigel Paul Farage (1964-04-03) 3 April 1964 Farnborough, Kent, England
Political party	Reform UK (after 2019)
Other political affiliations	Conservative (1978–1992) Anti-Federalist League (1992–1993) UKIP (1993–2018) Independent (2018–2019)
Spouses	Gráinne Hayes ​ ​ (m. 1988; div. 1997)​ Kirsten Mehr ​ ​ (m. 1999, separated)​
Domestic partner	Laure Ferrari
Children	4
Education	Dulwich College
Occupation	Politician broadcaster media personality
Signature
Website	nfarage.com

Nigel Paul Farage (/ˈfærɑːʒ/ FARR-ahzh; born 3 April 1964) is a British politician and broadcaster who has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Clacton and Leader of Reform UK since 2024, having previously been its leader from 2019 to 2021. He was the leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) from 2006 to 2009 and 2010 to 2016. Farage served as a member of the European Parliament (MEP) for South East England from 1999 until the UK's withdrawal from the European Union (EU) in 2020.

A prominent Eurosceptic since the early 1990s, Farage was first elected to the European Parliament (EP) in 1999. In 2004 he became the president of Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy. Farage was elected UKIP's leader in 2006 and led the party at the 2009 European Parliament election, when it won the second-most votes in the UK. He stood unsuccessfully in Buckingham at the 2010 general election before he returned as UKIP's leader that same year. At the 2014 European Parliament election UKIP won the most seats in the UK, pressuring David Cameron to call the 2016 EU membership referendum. At the 2015 general election Farage was an unsuccessful candidate in South Thanet.

After the successful referendum Farage resigned as UKIP's leader. In 2018 he co-founded the Brexit Party (renamed Reform UK in 2021), which drew support from those frustrated with the delayed implementation of Brexit by Theresa May's government, and won the most votes at the 2019 European Parliament election, becoming the largest single party in the parliament; May announced her resignation days later, and was succeeded by Boris Johnson, whose government delivered Brexit in 2020; Farage has criticised the delivery of Brexit on several occasions. At the 2024 general election Farage again became Reform UK's leader, and won in Clacton.

Farage is known for his distinctive character and style, including his flamboyant personality, fashion, and social media presence, as well as his form of British right-wing populism. He was ranked second in The Daily Telegraph's Top 100 most influential right-wingers poll in 2013, behind Cameron, and was also named "Briton of the Year" by The Times in 2014. He was ranked first on the New Statesman's Right Power List in 2023, described as "the most influential person on the British right".

Early life and education

Nigel Paul Farage was born in Farnborough, Kent, England, the son of Barbara (née Stevens) and Guy Justus Oscar Farage. His father was a stockbroker who worked in the City of London. A 2012 BBC Radio 4 profile described Guy Farage as an alcoholic who left the family home when Nigel was five years old. His father gave up alcohol two years later, in 1971, and entered the antiques trade, having lost his Stock Exchange position; the next year, endorsed by friends, he returned to the trading floor at the new Stock Exchange Tower on Threadneedle Street.

Farage's grandfather, Harry Farage, was a private who fought and was wounded in the First World War. It has been suggested that the Farage name comes from a distant Huguenot ancestor. Both parents of one of Farage's great-grandfathers were Germans who emigrated to London from the Frankfurt area shortly after 1861. His German ancestor Nicholas Schrod was mentioned in newspapers in 1870 in connection with a dispute with two men over the Franco-Prussian War.

Farage's first school was Greenhayes School for Boys in West Wickham and he subsequently spent a short period at a similar school in nearby Eden Park. From 1975 to 1982, Farage was educated at Dulwich College, a fee-paying private school in south London. In his autobiography he pays tribute to the careers advice he received there from the England Test cricketer John Dewes, "who must have spotted that I was quite ballsy, probably good on a platform, unafraid of the limelight, a bit noisy and good at selling things". Farage was active in the Conservative Party from his school days, having seen a visit to his school by Keith Joseph.

In 1981, an English teacher who had not met the 17-year-old Farage, Chloe Deakin, wrote to the headmaster of Dulwich College, David Emms, asking him to reconsider his decision to appoint Farage as a prefect, citing concerns expressed by others over Farage's alleged 'fascist' views. Emms rejected those concerns, as did the college's deputy headmaster, Terry Walsh, who said later that Farage "was well-known for provoking people, especially left-wing English teachers who had no sense of humour". Farage later stated: "Any accusation [that] I was ever involved in far right politics is utterly untrue."

Early career

After leaving school in 1982, Farage obtained employment in the City of London, trading commodities at the London Metal Exchange. Initially, he joined the American commodity operation of brokerage firm Drexel Burnham Lambert, transferring to Crédit Lyonnais Rouse in 1986. He joined Refco in 1994, and Natixis Metals in 2003.

Farage had joined the Conservative Party in 1978, but voted for the Green Party in 1989 because of what he saw as their then "sensible" and Eurosceptic policies. He left the Conservatives in 1992 in protest at Prime Minister John Major's government's signing of the Treaty on European Union at Maastricht. In 1992, Farage joined the Anti-Federalist League. In 1993, he was a founding member of UKIP. In 1994, Farage asked Enoch Powell to endorse UKIP; Powell declined.

European Parliament

Farage was elected to the European Parliament in 1999 and re-elected in 2004, 2009 and 2014. The BBC spent four months filming a documentary about his European election campaign in 1999 but did not air it. Farage, then head of the UKIP's South East office, asked for a video and had friends make copies which were sold for £5 through the UKIP's magazine. Surrey Trading Standards investigated, and no offence was found. Farage was the leader of the 24-member UKIP contingent in the European Parliament, and co-leader of the multinational Eurosceptic group, Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy. Farage was ranked the fifth-most influential MEP by Politico in 2016, who described him as "one of the two most effective speakers in the chamber". Reportedly, he would always be assigned office number 007 in the European Parliament.

On 18 November 2004 Farage announced in the European Parliament that Jacques Barrot, then French Commissioner-designate, had been barred from elected office in France for two years, after being convicted in 2000 of embezzling £2 million from government funds and diverting it into the coffers of his party. He said that French President Jacques Chirac had granted Barrot amnesty; initial BBC reports said that, under French law, it was perhaps illegal to mention that conviction. The prohibition in question applies only to French officials in the course of their duties. The President of the Parliament, Josep Borrell, enjoined him to retract his comments under threat of "legal consequences". The following day, it was confirmed that Barrot had received an eight-month suspended jail sentence in the case, and that this had been quickly expunged by the amnesty decided by Chirac and his parliamentary majority.

In early 2005 Farage requested that the European Commission disclose where the individual Commissioners had spent their holidays. The Commission did not provide the information requested, on the basis that the Commissioners had a right of privacy. The German newspaper Die Welt reported that the President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, had spent a week on the yacht of the Greek shipping billionaire Spiros Latsis. It emerged soon afterwards that this had occurred a month before the Commission under Barroso's predecessor Romano Prodi approved 10.3 million euros of Greek state aid for Latsis's shipping company. It also became known that Peter Mandelson, then the British EU Commissioner, had accepted a trip to Jamaica from an unrevealed source at a debate on 26 May 2005. The motion was heavily defeated. A Conservative MEP, Roger Helmer, was expelled from his group, the European People's Party – European Democrats (EPP-ED), in the middle of the debate by that group's leader Hans-Gert Pöttering as a result of his support for Farage's motion.

Farage persuaded around 75 MEPs from across the political divide to back a motion of no confidence in Barroso, which would be sufficient to compel Barroso to appear before the European Parliament to be questioned on the issue. The motion was successfully tabled on 12 May 2005, and Barroso appeared before Parliament.

In 2013 Farage criticised Barroso's former membership in the Maoist Portuguese Workers' Communist Party, saying: "You are a man that likes fixed ideology, you probably picked it up when you were a communist or Maoist, or whatever you were, and for the last ten years you've pursued euro-federalism combined with an increasing green obsession."

After the speech of Herman Van Rompuy on 24 February 2010 to the European Parliament, Farage – to protests from other MEPs – addressed the former Prime Minister of Belgium and first long-term President of the European Council, saying that he had the "charisma of a damp rag" and the appearance of "a low grade bank clerk". Farage questioned the legitimacy of Van Rompuy's appointment, asking, "Who are you? I'd never heard of you, nobody in Europe had ever heard of you." He also said that Van Rompuy's "intention [is] to be the quiet assassin of European democracy and of the European nation states". Van Rompuy commented afterwards, "There was one contribution that I can only hold in contempt, but I'm not going to comment further." After declining to apologise for behaviour that was, in the words of the President of the European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek, "inappropriate, unparliamentary and insulting to the dignity of the House", Farage was reprimanded and had his right to ten days' allowance (expenses) "docked".

Buzek said after his meeting with Farage:

I defend absolutely Mr Farage's right to disagree about the policy or institutions of the Union, but not to personally insult our guests in the European Parliament or the country from which they may come... I myself fought for free speech as the absolute cornerstone of a democratic society. But with freedom comes responsibility – in this case, to respect the dignity of others and of our institutions. I am disappointed by Mr Farage's behaviour, which sits ill with the great parliamentary tradition of his own country. I cannot accept this sort of behaviour in the European Parliament. I invited him to apologise, but he declined to do so. I have therefore – as an expression of the seriousness of the matter – rescinded his right to ten days' daily allowance as a Member.

Questioned by Camilla Long of The Times, Farage described his speech: "it wasn't abusive, it was right."

Charles, Prince of Wales was invited to speak to the European Parliament on 14 February 2008; in his speech he called for EU leadership in the battle against climate change. During the standing ovation that followed, Farage was the only MEP to remain seated, and he went on to describe the Prince's advisers as "naïve and foolish at best."

In May 2009 The Observer reported a Foreign Press Association speech given by Farage in which he had said that over his ten years as a Member of the European Parliament he had received a total of £2 million of taxpayers' money in staff, travel, and other expenses. In response, Farage said that in future all UKIP MEPs would provide monthly expense details.

In a second visit to Edinburgh in May 2014 Farage correctly predicted that UKIP would win a Scottish seat in the European Parliament elections. Two hundred protesters heckled and booed him. Thirty police in two vans were needed to preserve order.

In the European Parliament elections in 2014, Farage led UKIP to win the highest share of the vote. It was the first time a political party other than the Labour Party and Conservative Party had won the popular vote in a national election since the 1906 general election. It was also the first time a party other than the Labour and Conservatives won the largest number of seats in a national election since the December 1910 general election.

In June 2014 Farage declared £205,603 for gifts over ten years, including free use of a barn for his constituency office, which had been declared in the EU register in Brussels each year. The Electoral Commission said that the gifts should have been also declared in the UK within 30 days of receipt and fined Farage £200.

In early November 2014, just days after becoming head of the European Commission, the former Prime Minister of Luxembourg Jean-Claude Juncker was hit by media disclosures—derived from a document leak known as Luxembourg Leaks—that Luxembourg under his premiership had turned into a major European centre of corporate tax avoidance. A subsequent motion of censure in the European Parliament was brought against Juncker over his role in the tax avoidance schemes. The motion was defeated by a large majority. Farage was one of the main drivers behind the censure motion.

UK Independence Party

1993–2010

Farage at the UKIP Conference in 2009

Farage was a founder member of UKIP in 1993. On 12 September 2006 he was elected leader of UKIP with 45 per cent of the vote, 20 percentage points ahead of his nearest rival. He pledged to bring discipline to the party and to maximise UKIP's representation in local, parliamentary and other elections. In a PM programme interview on BBC Radio 4 that day he pledged to end the public perception of UKIP as a single-issue party and to work with allied politicians in the Better Off Out campaign, committing himself not to stand against the MPs who have signed up to that campaign.

In his maiden speech to the UKIP conference, on 8 October 2006, Farage told delegates that the party was "at the centre-ground of British public opinion" and the "real voice of opposition". He said: "We've got three social democratic parties in Britain – Labour, Lib Dem and Conservative are virtually indistinguishable from each other on nearly all the main issues" and "you can't put a cigarette paper between them and that is why there are nine million people who don't vote now in general elections that did back in 1992."

At 10pm on 19 October 2006, Farage took part in a three-hour live interview and phone-in with James Whale on the national radio station Talksport. Four days later, Whale announced on his show his intention to stand as UKIP's candidate in the 2008 London Mayoral Election. Farage said that Whale "not only has guts, but an understanding of what real people think". Whale later decided not to stand and UKIP was represented by Gerard Batten.

2010 general election

On 4 September 2009 Farage resigned as UKIP's leader to focus on his campaign to become Member of Parliament for Buckingham at Westminster in the 2010 general election. He later told The Times journalist Camilla Long that UKIP internal fights took up far too much time.

Farage stood against sitting Buckingham MP, John Bercow, the newly elected Speaker of the House of Commons, despite the convention that the Speaker, as a political neutral, is not normally challenged in his or her bid for re-election by any of the major parties. He later said he "miscalculated" the popularity of Bercow in the constituency.

Farage came third with 8,401 votes. Bercow was re-elected and in second place with 10,331 votes was John Stevens, a former Conservative MEP who campaigned as an independent accompanied by "Flipper the Dolphin" (a reference to MPs – including Bercow – flipping second homes).

Aircraft accident

On 6 May 2010, the morning of the election, Farage was travelling in a two-seater PZL-104 Wilga aircraft with a pro-UKIP banner attached, when the plane crashed. Farage suffered injuries that were described as non-life-threatening. Although his injuries were originally described as minor, his sternum and ribs were broken and his lung punctured. The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) report said that the aeroplane was towing a banner, which caught in the tailplane, forcing the nose down.

On 1 December 2010, Justin Adams, the pilot of the aircraft involved in the accident, was charged with threatening to kill Farage in a separate incident. He was also charged with threatening to kill an AAIB official involved in the investigation into the accident. In April 2011, the pilot was found guilty of making death threats. The judge said that the defendant was "clearly extremely disturbed" at the time the offences happened, adding: "He is a man who does need help. If I can find a way of giving him help I will." Adams was given a two-year supervised community order, and in December 2013 was found dead at home in circumstances that police said were "not being treated as suspicious".

2010–2015

Farage stood again for the UKIP leadership in 2010 after his successor Lord Pearson had stood down, and on 5 November 2010 it was announced he had won the leadership contest.

UKIP forgot to put its party name on its candidate's ballot paper for the 2012 London mayoral election, Laurence Webb appearing as "a fresh choice for London". Farage described the mistake as an internal error. Interviewed the following Sunday by Andrew Neil and asked about "the game plan", Farage welcomed the "average 13% vote" across the country and stated that the party was preparing for county council elections in 2013, the European Parliament election in 2014 and a general election in 2015.

Farage at the opening of the UKIP office in Basingstoke, in 2012

Asked what would happen to UKIP if the Conservatives made a manifesto commitment to a referendum on EU membership, Farage said they had already failed to honour a "cast iron" commitment to a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Farage said that UKIP aspired to come top of the European elections, but Neil suggested UKIP were still seen as "unprofessional, amateur and even unacceptable". In the same interview, Farage described Baroness Warsi as "the lowest grade Chairman the Tory Party has ever had". He was voted politician of the year by the online service MSN.

In May 2013 Farage led UKIP to its best performance in a UK election. The party received 23 per cent of the vote in the local elections, winning 147 council seats, and placing it only 2 points behind the governing Conservative Party and 9 points ahead of the Liberal Democrats. Farage was mobbed by well-wishers as he made his way to his favourite pub, the Marquis of Granby, for a celebratory drink. He called the victory "a real sea change in British politics". Subsequently, polling agency Survation found that 22 per cent of voters intended to support UKIP in the 2015 General Election.

In May 2013 Farage was interrupted by protesters during a press conference in the Canon's Gait pub on Edinburgh's Royal Mile. The demonstration was organised by groups including the Radical Independence Campaign and saw protesters vocally accuse Farage of being "racist", "fascist", and a "homophobe", and tell him to "go back to London". Farage made attempts to leave by taxi but was prevented from doing so, and was eventually taken away in an armoured police van while protesters continued to shout. He was trying to raise the profile of UKIP in Scotland ahead of the Aberdeen Donside by-election; the party at that point had no representation in the country, and took 0.91 per cent of the vote in the previous election though it won its first Scottish MEP the following year. During an interview with BBC's Good Morning Scotland radio show, Farage cut short the exchange, stating that the questions regarding the incident in Edinburgh were insulting and unpleasant.

Farage said in 2013 that he had hired a tax advisor to set up the Farage Family Educational Trust 1654, a trust that Farage said was used "for inheritance purposes", on the Isle of Man. Farage later described this "as standard practice" but stated he "decided I didn't want it. I never ever used it. The Isle of Man is not a tax haven." Farage has since said that this was a mistake: that he was "not rich enough" to need it, that what was seen to be fair 10, 20 or 30 years ago wasn't anymore, and that it cost him money. He has criticised the political discourse surrounding tax avoidance as a "race to the bottom". The BBC reported: "The Isle of Man was one of the UK's crown dependencies which signed an agreement on corporate disclosure at a recent meeting with David Cameron amid claims that individuals and firms are using offshore locations to reduce their tax liabilities", adding that the Isle of Man rejects any allegations that they are used for the purpose of tax avoidance.

Farage had previously denounced tax avoidance in a speech to the European Parliament in which he criticised European bureaucrats who earned £100,000 a year and paid 12 per cent tax under EU rules, Farage said in 2014 that "most legal forms of tax avoidance are ok, but clearly some are not" after he was questioned on why £45,000 of his income was paid into his private company rather than a personal bank account, and that criticism of his actions was "ridiculous". In the wake of the Panama Papers leak, Farage said that the possibility of him releasing his tax return was a "big no" as "I think in this country what people earn is regarded as a private matter", and criticised David Cameron as hypocritical, especially with regard to his past comments about Jimmy Carr's tax avoidance.

As of 2019, Farage continued to have fees paid to him via a limited company, Thorn in the Side Ltd.

On 12 September 2014, he appeared at a pro-union rally with Scottish UKIP MEP David Coburn ahead of Scotland's independence referendum.

2015 general election

Farage in 2015

In October 2013 Farage announced on the BBC's The Andrew Marr Show that he would stand for election as an MP at the 2015 general election, most likely contesting either Folkestone and Hythe or South Thanet; meanwhile he stated that his duty and preference was to focus on his current role as an MEP.

In August 2014 Farage was selected as the UKIP candidate for South Thanet following local hustings.

In October 2014 Farage was invited to take part in prospective Leaders' debates on BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky ahead of the 2015 general election. UKIP indicated that it would consider taking legal action were the party excluded, in contravention of established broadcast media rules, from televised Leaders' debates in advance of the election. The 7-way Leaders' TV debate was broadcast by ITV on 2 April 2015 from MediaCityUK, Salford Quays. Of three polls taken immediately afterwards, the ComRes poll had Farage as joint winner, alongside Labour's Ed Miliband and Conservative David Cameron.

In March 2015 Farage declared in his book The Purple Revolution that he would step down as UKIP leader should he not be elected as an MP; he stated his belief that it would not be "credible" for him to lead UKIP without sitting in parliament at Westminster.

On 22 March 2015 Farage was targeted by anti-UKIP activists who chased him and his family from a pub lunch in Downe, Greater London. His daughters ran away to hide and were later found to be safe. Farage, when asked what he thought about the incident, called the protesters "scum".

Farage was unsuccessful in his bid to become MP for South Thanet although he came second (beating Labour by over 4,000 votes), reduced the Conservative majority to less than 3,000, and gained over 32% of the vote.

Farage subsequently announced his resignation as the leader of UKIP, citing that he is a "man of his word" since he promised to resign if he did not win his seat, although he kept open the possibility of re-entering the ensuing leadership contest. On 11 May 2015 it was announced that Farage would continue to serve as the party's leader, with the BBC reporting: "Party chairman Steve Crowther said the national executive committee believed the election campaign had been a 'great success' and members had 'unanimously' rejected Mr Farage's letter of resignation". Interviewed about his continued leadership by the BBC the following day, Farage said: "I resigned. I said I'd resign. I turned up to the NEC meeting with letter in hand fully intending to carry that through. They unanimously said they didn't want me to do that, they presented me with petitions, signatures, statements from candidates saying it would be a bad thing for UKIP. So I left the meeting, went and sat in darkened room to think about what to do, and decided for the interest of the party I would accept their kind offer for me to stay and tear up the letter." He added that he would consider standing for parliament again should a by-election be called in a Labour-held seat.

A row subsequently developed within the party, in which MEP and campaign chief Patrick O'Flynn described Farage's public image as "snarling, thin-skinned, aggressive" and said he risked turning the party into a "personality cult". O'Flynn accused Farage of paying too much attention to advisors that "would like to take UKIP in the direction of some hard-right, ultra-aggressive American Tea Party-type movement", singling out the NHS and gun control liberalisation as particular issues. Raheem Kassam, Farage's chief of staff and editor of Breitbart London was later sacked as a result, whilst O'Flynn stated that he continued to support Farage as party leader. Farage also faced a number of calls from senior figures within the party to stand down.

Following the election, a UKIP spokesman acknowledged that after a series of threatening attacks on Farage it had sent an informant into the Thanet branch of the protest organisation Stand Up to UKIP, stating "in order to provide reasonable security it was of course necessary to have information from the inside", an approach he said was used by "a great many security operations tasked with protecting the safety and wellbeing of a targeted individual". According to The Guardian, the informant is alleged to have actively encouraged members to commit criminal damage. Farage had said he was the victim of "trade union-funded activists" who were inciting vandalism.

Brexit

2016 referendum

Farage in 2016

Farage was a key figurehead in the Brexit campaign of 2016, which, with 52 per cent of the vote, won. Jean-Claude Juncker promptly told all UKIP members to leave the Parliament. During the campaign, Farage had made the suggestion of a future second referendum should the Brexit campaign be unsuccessful, but the result be closer than 52–48. Farage accused US President Barack Obama of a "monstrous interference" in the Brexit referendum debate, saying "You wouldn't expect the British Prime Minister to intervene in your presidential election; you wouldn't expect the Prime Minister to endorse one candidate or another."

Farage initially supported Vote Leave (led by Dominic Cummings and Matthew Elliott, supported by Boris Johnson and Michael Gove) and Leave.EU (led by Arron Banks) in their campaigns to leave the EU, saying that they reached "different audiences"; however, he later grew irritated at Vote Leave's marginalisation of the UKIP-backed Grassroots Out movement, and their lack of explicit focus on immigration as an issue. He blamed this on the senior "apparatchiks" within the party (i.e. Cummings and Elliott) who purposefully marginalised Farage during the campaign, believing his attitudes on immigration deterred swing voters. The Daily Telegraph quoted Farage as saying that: "[Cummings] has never liked me. He can't stand the ERG. I can't see him coming to any accommodation with anyone. He has huge personal enmity with the true believers in Brexit".

Farage has argued strongly in favour of a British Independence Day being observed within the United Kingdom, on 23 June each year. On 24 June 2016, in a televised speech on the morning of the Brexit result, he stated, "let 23 June go down in our history as our Independence Day", and later said that it "must now be made a national holiday."

2016–2019

Farage in the European Parliament plenary session in January 2019 with Frans Timmermans

On 28 June 2016 Farage made a speech in the European Parliament in which he stated that a hypothetical failure for the EU to forge a trade deal with an exiting UK would "be far worse for you than it would be for us", to heckling and laughing by Parliament members. He said of his fellow MEPs that "virtually none" of them had ever done "a proper job" in their lives. Farage also said: "... when I came here 17 years ago, and I said that I wanted to lead a campaign to get Britain to leave the European Union, you all laughed at me. Well I have to say, you're not laughing now are you?" and his prediction that Britain will not be the only country to leave the EU. In response, Guy Verhofstadt compared Farage's referendum posters with Nazi propaganda and credited the Brexit campaign with causing a multi-billion loss in the stock exchange.

Farage resigned as leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party on 4 July 2016, saying that: "It's right that I should now stand aside as leader. What I said during the referendum campaign is I want my country back. What I'm saying today is I want my life back. And it begins right now" and "I have never been, and I have never wanted to be, a career politician." He added that this resignation was final: "I won't be changing my mind again, I can promise you", apparently referring to his two previous resignations (in 2009 and 2015). Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission, described Farage as a "retro-nationalist", Caroline Lucas, Green Party MP for Brighton Pavilion, said that his legacy is "toxic and unforgivable" and that "He has used his position to whip up hatred against migrants and divert attention from the real challenges this country is facing." Paul Nuttall, a UKIP MEP, tweeted that Farage's "drive and belief shook establishment politics to its core and gave us a voice" and Suzanne Evans, former Deputy Chairman of UKIP, said that Farage's resignation surprised her, but "there is room still in Britain for UKIP". Writing in The Spectator, after his resignation, the journalist Rod Liddle described Farage as: "The most important British politician of the last decade and the most successful. His resignation leaves a hole in our political system. With enormous intelligence and chutzpah and a refreshingly unorthodox approach, he built UKIP up from nothing to become established as our third largest party and succeeded in his overriding ambition – to see the UK vote to leave the European Union."

From 18 to 21 July 2016, Farage attended the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio. After meeting governor of Mississippi Phil Bryant on the final day of the convention, Farage was invited to a fundraising dinner in the state in August where he met future President of the United States, Donald Trump, for the first time, going on to speak at a rally for Trump later that day.

Following a legal challenge by Gina Miller to the use of the Royal Prerogative to invoke article 50, Farage appeared on The Andrew Marr Show with Miller. She stated that "politicians had lied all the way through" and that the Referendum act clearly said that the result was advisory. Farage accepted that it was advisory but said afterwards "I just want to ask her – what part of the word 'leave' don't you understand?". Farage talked of a peaceful protest and warned of unprecedented political anger if Parliament blocked Brexit. Miller said that parliamentary democracy required parliament to debate issues and that Farage had spent the whole Brexit campaign arguing for parliamentary sovereignty. Calling his warnings "the politics of the gutter", Tim Farron said the British judges had merely interpreted British law and that fortunately Farage was the only person talking about taking to the streets. Miller has previously called Farage irresponsible and has blamed him and the tabloid media for death threats against her. She stated in November 2016 that she would not take legal action against those who had threatened her.

On 7 November 2016 Farage announced he would lead a 100,000 strong march to the Supreme Court, timed for when it started hearing the Government appeal. On 27 November 2016, it was reported the march was being cancelled out of concerns it could be hijacked by the far-right groups English Defence League and the British National Party. The next day, Paul Nuttall became the new UKIP party leader after Farage decided to step aside to strengthen his relationship with US President-elect Donald Trump.

In 2017 Farage called for the departure of UKIP's only MP, Douglas Carswell. He said in The Daily Telegraph: "I think there is little future for UKIP with him staying inside this party. The time for him to go is now." There was reportedly controversy within the party over whether Carswell had tried to prevent Farage receiving a knighthood. It was reported the MP had suggested Farage should instead be given an OBE "for services to headline writers".

On 20 April 2017 Farage announced that he would not contest the 2017 general election. He said that he believed he could further advance his version of Brexit as a leader of a group in the European Parliament.

In May 2018 Farage addressed a fundraising event for the Democratic Unionist Party, with his main financial backer, Arron Banks, who accompanied Farage during the event, stating that he would support a bid by Farage to seek office as a DUP candidate after the end of his tenure as Member of the European Parliament in 2019. In 2018 he joined Leave Means Leave as vice-chairman.

Brexit Party

Farage at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in the US in 2018

On 4 December 2018 Farage announced "with a heavy heart" on his live LBC radio show that effective immediately he had resigned his membership of UKIP, after 25 years as a member of the party. In explanation, Farage mentioned UKIP leader Gerard Batten's appointment the previous month of far-right activist Tommy Robinson as an adviser and the National Executive of UKIP's voting in a no-confidence vote to keep Batten as leader of the party. Farage argued that Batten was "obsessed with the issue of Islam, not just Islamic extremism, but Islam, and UKIP wasn't founded to be a party fighting a religious crusade." He also said that association with Robinson damaged the image of Brexit.

On 8 February 2019 Reuters noted that the Brexit Party had been approved by the Electoral Commission and quoted Farage from an article he wrote in The Telegraph, stating that he would stand as a candidate for the party in any potential future European Parliament election contested in the United Kingdom. On 8 February 2019, the Financial Times quoted Farage as saying the new party was a "live vehicle" that could be "mobilised" if Brexit is delayed. On 13 February Farage confirmed he would sit in the European Parliament as a member of the Brexit Party. On 22 March he was announced as the new leader of the party after founder and former leader Catherine Blaiklock resigned. In May he said "We're running a company, not a political party." and personally selected the candidates for the EU election.

On 14 May Conservative MP Crispin Blunt called for the government to go into an "electoral arrangement" with the Brexit Party to ensure Brexit was to happen on time. Asked by Huw Edwards if he would consider such a partnership, Farage said he would be willing to work with anyone to secure a deal that gets Britain out of the single market, customs union and European Court of Justice, but said that trust may be an issue, stating: "both main parties have let us down very badly".

In May 2019 British broadcaster Channel 4 News reported it had seen invoices for travel and accommodation expenses between summer 2016 and summer 2017. It further reported that these benefits, worth "as much as £450,000", were funded by Arron Banks, and were not declared on Farage's register of interests, which he should have done as a serving MEP. Liberal Democrat MEP Catherine Bearder, in her role as a quaestor (an MEP responsible for financial and administrative matters), raised the issue and this resulted in an official investigation opening on 21 May 2019. When asked by the BBC about the matter Farage replied, "Whatever happened after the referendum – I was leaving politics, it happened mostly in America, it had nothing to do with politics, nothing to do with the Brexit Party, it was purely on a personal basis. I was looking for a new career and a new life – it's got nothing to do with anything, it's a purely private matter."

On 20 May 2019, a Brexit opponent threw a milkshake at Farage in Newcastle upon Tyne. The assailant, who was arrested at the scene, accused Farage of "spouting bile and racism". Farage tweeted about the incident saying: "For a civilised democracy to work you need the losers' consent, politicians not accepting the referendum result have led us to this." A month later, 32-year-old Paul Crowther pleaded guilty to common assault and criminal damage at Tyneside Magistrates' Court, where District Judge Bernard Begley ordered him to carry out 150 hours of community service and pay £350 compensation to Farage.

Farage with Donald Trump in 2019

In June 2019, Trump suggested that Farage should be involved in the UK government's Brexit negotiations, because he had "a lot to offer".

In the 2019 European Parliament election, Farage led the Brexit Party to win 29 seats and the highest share of the vote. Among the party's MEPs that were elected were former Conservatives Ann Widdecombe and Annunziata Rees-Mogg.

Following Boris Johnson becoming prime minister, Farage unveiled the names of 635 general election candidates for the Brexit Party, including himself. He later announced that he would not be standing as a candidate.

On 8 September 2019, Farage said that the Brexit Party should be given "a free run" at targeting traditional Labour voters in the North of England, Midlands and Wales by the Conservative Party as part of an electoral pact. According to The Sunday Telegraph, he did not want the Brexit Party to face Conservative opposition in constituencies such as Wansbeck and West Bromwich East and in return the Brexit Party would not contest seats where the leave vote was at risk of splitting. Farage said that his party and the Conservatives "together would be unstoppable".

On 11 September, a senior Conservative source said that Farage was "not a fit and proper person" and "should never be allowed anywhere near government". The government confirmed that Boris Johnson would not form an electoral pact with Farage, to which he said he was "disappointed" as he was offering a "genuine hand of friendship". Standing 275 candidates, the Brexit Party gained 644,257 votes in the election, but no seats.

In January 2020, the Greater London Authority granted Leave Means Leave permission to hold a party in Parliament Square on the night the UK left the EU. Farage told the crowd celebrating the occasion on 31 January that "what happens now marks the point of no return. We are never going back". Other speakers included the businessman Tim Martin, politician Peter Bone and broadcaster Julia Hartley-Brewer. Before the party, Farage expressed support for Big Ben to chime to mark the moment at 11 pm GMT.

In December 2020, Farage celebrated the EU–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement, following the agreement's announcement, stating that the "war is over."

Farage in 2020

During the very early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, in March 2020, Farage wrote "protecting us all from an epidemic should be prioritised over the economy", and criticised the herd immunity policy which was being pursued at the time by Boris Johnson's government.

In November 2020, Farage endorsed October's Great Barrington Declaration, which advocates focused protection of those most vulnerable to COVID-19 with the majority of the population allowed to resume normal life. He described lockdowns as "cruel and unnecessary", said he thought that "the cure is worse than the disease", and announced that the Brexit Party, which was being rebranded as Reform UK, would campaign against further lockdowns. The Barrington approach was conceived by Sunetra Gupta, a professor of theoretical epidemiology at the University of Oxford, as well as Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford University and Martin Kulldorff of Harvard University. The scientists were concerned with lockdown's effects on public health and mental health, especially for the underprivileged, which they described as "devastating". However, the approach has been criticised by Tedros Adhanom, the director-general of the World Health Organization, and Robert Lechler, the president of the British Academy of Medical Sciences.

In 2020, Farage established a financial newsletter, Fortune and Freedom, which describes itself as "unregulated product published by Southbank Investment Research Limited". On 28 March 2021 Dutch Green Business announced Farage had been appointed to the firm's advisory board. The newsletter discusses issues related to pension investments.

In July 2021, Farage criticised the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, accusing them of being a "taxi service" for illegal immigrants. This provoked a major public backlash – donations to the service rose 3000% in the wake of the remarks and a fundraiser on GoFundMe raised over £120,000 to purchase a new rescue hovercraft for the charity with a suggestion the boat be christened The Flying Farage. In November 2021 Farage published an op-ed in The Daily Telegraph contemplating a return to frontline politics, due to the English Channel migrant crossings and what he perceived as the Prime Minister's indifference to the issue.

In 2021, Farage made videos on the Cameo platform and fell victim to several pranks intended to make him refer to various Irish republican slogans, as well as internet memes such as Among Us and Big Chungus.

Farage launched the Vote Power Not Poverty campaign to secure a referendum on Johnson's government's pledge to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

In September 2022, Farage introduced a range of three gins made in Cornwall.

In May 2023, Farage told BBC Newsnight that Brexit had failed due to the policies of successive Conservative governments, saying that their policies meant that the UK did not benefit economically from leaving the bloc.

In September 2023, Farage was ranked first on the New Statesman's Right Power List, describing him as "the most influential person on the British right". In February 2024, Farage revealed that he was "open-minded" about joining the Conservative Party after the general election, more than 30 years after he left the party.

Reform UK

The Reform UK party, a 2021 rename of the Brexit Party, is a limited company (Reform UK Party Limited) with fifteen shares. Farage owned 53% of the shares in the company, giving him a controlling majority. The other shareholders were Tice, who holds about a third, and Chief Executive Paul Oakden and Party Treasurer Mehrtash A'Zami who each held less than one percent. In August 2024 Paul Oakden was removed and Farage took over his shares, giving him 60% ownership. Reform UK is unusual in that British political parties are usually not corporate entities, but unincorporated associations comprising a leadership and a membership; Reform's paying supporters have no voting powers.

On 6 March 2021, Farage announced in an interview with The Telegraph that he was retiring from politics and resigning as leader of Reform UK. He became the party's honorary president and was replaced as the party's leader by Richard Tice.

2024 general election

Main article: Clacton in the 2024 United Kingdom general election

We all know already that the Conservative Party will be in Opposition. But they won't be the Opposition, they are incapable of it. They've spent most of the last five years fighting each other, rather than fighting for the interests of this country. They are split down the middle on policy, and frankly, right now they don't stand for a damn thing. So our aim in this election is to get many, many millions of votes. And I'm talking far more votes than UKIP got back in 2015.

— Nigel Farage in his announcement speech. May 2024

Farage campaigning for Reform UK during the 2024 general election

At a news conference on 3 June 2024, Farage announced both his intention to become leader of Reform UK once again and his candidature for the party in the Clacton constituency. He previously said he would not stand in the election, but changed his mind after people had asked him to run. On his first day of campaigning in Clacton-on-Sea, Farage had a banana milkshake thrown over him by a member of the crowd. A 25-year-old woman was arrested on suspicion of assault. Farage appeared to make a joke about the incident later in the day, when he appeared in front of the media in the village of Jaywick with a tray of milkshakes. On 12 June, Farage had a paper cup and an unidentified object thrown at him whilst campaigning on an open-top bus. A 28-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of public order offences. Farage said that he would not be cowed by the incident. He was subsequently provided with private security.

On 17 June, Farage and Tice launched the Reform UK manifesto, which they called a "contract" (Our Contract with You). It pledged to lower taxes, lower immigration, increase funding for public services, reform the NHS and decrease its waiting lists to 'zero', bring utilities and critical national infrastructure under 50% public ownership (the other 50% owned by pension funds), replace the House of Lords with a more democratic second chamber, and to replace first-past-the-post voting with a system of proportional representation. It also pledged to accelerate transport infrastructure in coastal regions, Wales, the North, and the Midlands. The party also wants to freeze non-essential immigration and recruit 40,000 new police officers. Reform UK are the only major party to oppose the current net zero target made by the government. Instead, it pledged to support the environment with more tree planting, more recycling and less single-use plastics.

In a BBC Panorama interview with Nick Robinson, Farage repeated comments he had made previously claiming that the West and NATO provoked Russia's invasion of Ukraine. He was criticised for this by Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer. He also stated that Reform UK would lower the tax burden to encourage people into work. Farage stated in another interview that he would remove university tuition fees if he won power for those studying STEM subjects i.e. science, technology, engineering, and maths as well as medicine. Reform UK have already pledged to scrap interest on student loans and to extend the loan capital repayment periods to 45 years. Farage also declared his ambition for Reform UK to replace the Conservatives as the biggest right-wing party in Parliament.

On 27 June, an undercover Channel 4 journalist secretly recorded members of Farage's campaign team using offensive racial, Islamophobic and homophobic language, also suggesting refugees should be used as "target practice". In a statement, Farage said that he was "dismayed" at the "reprehensible" language. Tice said that racist comments were "inappropriate". Farage later accused Channel 4 of a "set-up", stating that one of the canvassers, Andrew Parker, had been an actor. Farage stated that Parker had been "acting from the moment he came into the office", and cited video of Parker performing "rough-speaking" from his acting website. Channel 4 denied that Parker was known to them prior to the report. Regarding other members of his campaign team, Farage stated that the individuals in question had "watched England play football, they were in the pub, they were drunk, it was crass."

On 4 July, Farage won the Clacton seat, with 46.2% of the vote, becoming an MP for the first time. In addition to Farage, four other Reform UK candidates were elected to parliament; Tice, Lee Anderson, Rupert Lowe and James McMurdock. With the Conservatives now in opposition, Farage has focused his attention on winning seats against the governing Labour Party in the next election, saying: "Reform are now second to Labour in 87 seats in this country. We are coming for you Keir Starmer."

Member of Parliament

Farage speaking in the House of Commons, 9 July 2024

Amid riots in July and August of 2024 following a mass stabbing in Southport, Farage condemned the disorder, stating: "The levels of intimidation and threat to life have no place in a functioning democracy". He called for Parliament to be recalled over the riots and suggested there was a widespread impression of "two-tier policing" as a result of "soft policing" during Black Lives Matter protests, which he said contributed to a "sense of injustice".

Farage was criticised by the former head of UK counter-terrorism, Neil Basu, for questioning whether the truth was being withheld from the public, with Basu accusing Farage of inciting violence and creating conspiracy theories. Farage was also accused of giving legitimacy to acts of violence by Steve Rotheram, the Mayor of Liverpool City Region, after releasing a video in which he said he did not support violence, but the protests were "nothing to what could happen over the course of the next few weeks".

In August 2024, Farage revealed as part of his obligation to the Register of Members' Financial Interests once entering parliament that he is earning over a million pounds per year for work done outside parliament, an amount that is estimated to be "significantly higher than that of any other member of parliament".

In September, Farage was in the process of purchasing a property in Clacton.

In the lead-up to the 2024 United States presidential election, Farage aligned himself closely with Republican nominee Donald Trump, meeting Trump at a rally on November 4 and attending Trump's exclusive Mar-a-Lago watch party on November 5. Farage also travelled to attend the Republican National Convention in July 2024.

Broadcasting career

Official MEP portrait, 2014

Fox News

On 20 January 2017, the day of Trump's presidential inauguration, US news channel Fox News announced it had hired Farage as a commentator. He has since provided political analysis for both the main Fox News channel and its sister channel Fox Business Network.

LBC

From January 2017 to June 2020 Farage hosted The Nigel Farage Show on the UK talk radio station LBC. The show was broadcast live on Monday to Thursday evenings.

Farage said on his show that Channel 4 journalist Jon Snow "should be attacked" for his "condescending bias" during coverage of a pro-Brexit protest in March 2019. Ofcom decided that Farage had not broken their broadcasting code since he clarified that he meant a verbal attack.

Farage speaking at a Trump rally in October 2020

On 31 October 2019, the day the UK was set to leave the European Union before the approval of a delay, Farage interviewed US President Donald Trump on his LBC show. Trump criticised Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Brexit deal, saying it made it difficult for the UK to strike a trade deal with the US.

From March 2018 to July 2018, Farage hosted a podcast under the LBC banner entitled Farage Against The Machine, a play on words for the term 'rage against the machine', where he discussed the latest political developments and political news with political figures who Farage both agrees, and disagrees with. New episodes of the podcast were released every Friday, but the podcast was cancelled after the American rock music band Rage Against the Machine sent a cease and desist letter to Farage, demanding that Farage change the name of the podcast, which he was unwilling to do, prompting LBC to reluctantly trigger its cancellation.

On 11 June 2020, LBC announced that Farage would be leaving the station "with immediate effect", noting that his contract had been up for renewal.

GB News

On 20 June 2021 Farage joined the British news channel GB News to host the Sunday morning political discussion programme The Political Correction. On 17 July 2021 he announced he would begin hosting the Monday to Thursday evening show Farage on 19 July.

In August 2024 it was revealed, through the Register of Members' Financial Interests (external) published by parliament, that Farage was earning nearly £1.2m a year from his work presenting on the GB News television channel. Farage later said he did not get a fixed monthly fee from GB News, but was paid varying amounts as a contractor. The sum disclosed to the register was a gross sum, including VAT, for work carried out since 1 April 2024, and also included services such as media consultancy, in addition to his work as television presenter.

I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!

Further information: I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! (British series 23)

In November 2023, it was announced that Farage would appear on the twenty-third series of the UK reality TV programme I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!. The Independent reported that ITV offered Farage a fee of up to £1.5 million to take part, which would make him the highest paid contestant to date, in the history of the show.

Farage finished in third place, behind Tony Bellew in second, and Sam Thompson in first.

Personal life

Farage attending the 2009 Ashes series at Lord's Cricket Ground

Farage resides in Single Street, a hamlet in the London Borough of Bromley, "around the corner from his mother".

He has been married twice. In 1988 he married Irish nurse Gráinne Hayes, with whom he has two children. The couple divorced in 1997. In 1999 he married Kirsten Mehr, a German national; the couple have two children. In April 2018, Farage said that the children have both British and German passports and that they speak "perfect German". Farage has spoken of how they have been teased because of their relation to him. He has made reference to his German wife in response to criticisms that he is "anti-Europe", while he himself says he is merely anti-EU. Farage has employed his wife Kirsten as his parliamentary secretary and in April 2014 he said that "nobody else could do that job". In February 2017, his wife told the Press Association that they were living "separate lives" and that Farage had "moved out of the family home a while ago".

In a BBC interview with Rachel Johnson in May 2017, he described himself as "53, separated, skint", citing 20 years of campaigning as the reason for both. In 2023, it was revealed that Farage had been in a relationship with the French politician Laure Ferrari for several years.

On 25 November 1985, Farage was hit by a car after a night out, and suffered injury to his head and left leg, the latter nearly requiring amputation. He was in casts for 11 months but recovered, and the nurse who treated him became his first wife. On 26 December 1986, Farage first felt symptoms of what was later discovered to be testicular cancer. He had the left testicle removed, and the cancer had not spread to any other organs.

Farage's memoir Fighting Bull (Flying Free in paperback) was published in 2010. It chronicles the founding of UKIP and his personal and political life. A second book, The Purple Revolution: The Year That Changed Everything, was released by Biteback Publishing in 2015.

Farage is a keen cricket fan and has appeared on Test Match Special. He appeared in an advertisement for the bookmaker Paddy Power ahead of golf's 2014 Ryder Cup. However, due to spinal injuries since his 2010 plane crash, he cannot play golf. Farage is also an association football fan, and supports Crystal Palace FC. He likes to relax by fishing alone at night on the Kent coast. Farage is a smoker and also fond of beer, this forming part of his public image. Farage is a member of the East India Club, an exclusive private gentlemen's club in St. James's Square in London.

Farage is a Christian. In 2014 he described himself as a "somewhat lapsed" member of the Church of England. In 2011, he also said "You know, you can be Christian and fun or you can be Christian and, like Cromwell, be deeply puritanical and want to control everybody".

In January 2016, Farage told The Mail on Sunday that he believed his car had been tampered with in October 2015, as he had been forced to stop when his car's wheel nuts came loose. He reported that he had spoken with the French police but did not wish to pursue the matter any further. The Times, however, said Farage's story was untrue, and that Dunkirk prosecutors had no reason to suspect foul play or the police would have started an investigation. The owner of the breakdown garage concerned had said the problem was probably shoddy repair work, but he had been unable to communicate directly with Farage. Farage later said he had made a "terrible, terrible mistake" in speaking to journalists and that a Sunday newspaper had misreported his claims of tampering as an assassination attempt.

On 31 May 2024, after Donald Trump was unanimously found guilty by a jury on 34 counts, Farage stated that he supports Trump "more than ever".

In August 2024 it was revealed that Farage was earning in excess a £1m a year from his employment outside parliament, in addition to his job as an MP. The figure included earnings of nearly £1.2m a year from his work presenting on the GB News television channel. The disclosures were made in the latest Register of Members' Financial Interests (external) published by parliament.

Coutts account

In June 2023, Farage said that his account with the private bank Coutts was to be closed. He was offered a standard bank account by Coutts's parent group, NatWest, in the closure notice he received. Farage said he was then refused personal and business accounts at seven other UK banks. When pressed by Farage to reveal why, NatWest said that he failed to meet the Coutts eligibility criteria as he did not hold £1,000,000 or more in his account following the expiry of his mortgage.

The story was picked up by the UK press. It was later revealed that Farage's account was closed in part as Coutts felt that his beliefs and values did not align with theirs. In an internal dossier, Coutts wrote that he "is at best seen as xenophobic and pandering to racists" and considered a "disingenuous grifter".

In a front-page story on 20 July, The Daily Telegraph reported that the Coutts CEO, Dame Alison Rose, had dined with Simon Jack, the business editor for BBC News, on the evening before he published an article saying that the decision had been "for commercial reasons". Peter Bone MP and David Jones MP were reported as calling for Rose to resign.

Documents disclosed by the bank to Farage following his submission of a subject access request showed that the decision by the bank's Wealth Reputational Risk Committee to close his accounts, according to the 40-page dossier, was in part due to his views being considered incompatible with the bank's "values or purpose". The dossier revealed that Farage was classed as a "lower risk" politically exposed person (PEP). It went to note that the bank considered declassifying Farage as a PEP on their next review in 2022. His status was maintained, however, in 2023, owing to his public profile and reported links to Russia.

Within the document, an update to Farage's notes from 10 March 2023 stated "The relationship has been below commercial criteria for some time and upon review of Nigel's past public profile and connections, the perceived risks for the future weighed against the benefit of retention the decision was taken to exit upon repayment of an existing mortgage." It adds that continuing to do business with him was "not compatible with Coutts given his publicly-stated views" and the decision was "This was not a political decision but one centred around inclusivity and purpose".

Rose was accused of holding ultimate responsibility for the decision to close Farage's accounts. On 25 July, Rose admitted to a "serious error of judgement" in discussing Farage's Coutts accounts with Jack, while the NatWest board said that it retained full confidence in her. Later that day, Rose resigned as CEO of NatWest Group with immediate effect.

On 26 July, Farage called on the whole of the NatWest board to resign. On 27 July, the Coutts chief executive Peter Flavel stepped down with immediate effect. Rishi Sunak supported Farage.

In October 2023, it was reported that the ICO ruled that Rose twice violated the law, as it upheld two parts of Farage’s complaint concerning the treatment of his personal data, but the ICO later withdrew the comment about Rose, and apologised to her, saying that their ruling related only to NatWest. In the same month, an investigation by lawyers Travers Smith, appointed by NatWest, found that the bank had acted in a "lawful" manner when it closed Farage's account, but had "failed to treat him fairly". The Financial Conduct Authority said that the report by Travers Smith revealed "potential regulatory breaches" by the bank. Farage described the Travers Smith report as a “whitewash”.

Reaction

Criticism has been laid at some media organisations for their coverage. Miqdaad Versi said some outlets have disproportionately focused on Farage's financial affairs while neglecting similar instances involving the de-banking of Muslim organisations and individuals. In 2014, when HSBC closed the account of a number of Muslim organisations in the UK, garnering similar concerns around freedom of speech and religion, HSBC stated decisions to close the accounts were "absolutely not based on race or religion". In 2016, the Co-op Bank closed the bank account of the pro-Palestinian non-governmental organisation Friends of Al-Aqsa, the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, and approximately 25 other Palestinian-affiliated organisations. The closures were said to have occurred without providing any explanation for the action. At the time the government commented saying it had delegated to banks the role of de-risking their clients for potential suspicious financing or money laundering.

Gina Miller, a pro-European Union activist, had a bank account for her political party closed down by Monzo with no explanation. Monzo subsequently stated that it did not provide bank accounts for political parties and that it had approved the account by mistake in the first place. Farage, a political opponent of Miller, called it "plain wrong" for her account to be closed down.

British journalist Emily Maitlis criticised the media coverage for "whipping up a populist storm" over the affair, claiming that the incident was a private company making a commercial decision to end a relationship, over political views. She went on to say Farage had somehow turned "utter entitlement into victimhood" given he had been offered a standard account rather than a private banking account, despite meeting the bank's requirements for an account.

Awards

In November 2016 Farage was honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award for his role in the 2016 Brexit referendum at the 33rd Parliamentarian of the Year awards run by political magazine The Spectator.

In December 2016 he was shortlisted for Time magazine's Person of the Year award.

In February 2020, an honorary doctorate of laws degree was presented to Farage by Jerry Falwell Jr. during Liberty University's weekly convocation for his role in Brexit and 'support of freedom' in Europe and the United States.

In June 2023, he won the award for Best Presenter at the annual TRIC Awards.

Bibliography

• Fighting Bull. Biteback (autobiography 2010 hardback first edition). ISBN 978-1849540391.
• Flying Free. Biteback (autobiography 2011 paperback second edition). ISBN 978-1849540940.
• The Purple Revolution: The Year That Changed Everything. Biteback (memoir 2015 paperback). ISBN 978-1849548632.

See also

• Political positions of Nigel Farage
• Electoral history of Nigel Farage
• Brexit: The Uncivil War, a 2019 film in which Nigel Farage is played by Paul Ryan
• The Farage Garage, a nickname given to the Customs clearance facility and lorry park being developed near Sevington, Kent (near Dover).

External links

• Official website
• MEP website
• Profile at Parliament of the United Kingdom
• Contributions in Parliament at Hansard
• Voting record at Public Whip
• Record in Parliament at TheyWorkForYou
• Nigel Farage Profile at European Parliament website
• UKIP MEPs Official website of the UK Independence Party in the European Parliament
• Europe of Freedom and Democracy Political group in the European Parliament
• Debrett's People of Today
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• 2002 Amnesty law
• Penal Code, articles L133-9, L133-10, L133-11