Nigel Farage

Nigel Paul Farage was born on 3 April 1964 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 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 paternal grandfather, Harry Farage, served as a private in the First World War and was wounded during the Battle of Arras. Both parents of one of Farage's great-grandfathers were Germans who immigrated to London from the Frankfurt area shortly after 1861. 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. Politicians visited the school, including Keith Joseph, Edward Heath and Enoch Powell. Farage joined the Conservative Party in 1978 after the visit of Keith Joseph. In December 2025, twenty-six former pupils and teaching staff at Dulwich College signed an open letter published in The Guardian asking Farage to apologise for alleged racist and antisemitic behaviour during his time there. Other former pupils who knew Farage said that they do not recall the behaviour described. Reform UK responded to the open letter by describing it as "a naked attempt to discredit Reform and Nigel Farage", adding that "the left-wing media and deeply unpopular Labour Party are now using 50-year-old smears in a last act of desperation." Farage denied making any of the comments that were attributed to him. The Guardian reported that eight other pupils have corroborated Ettedgui's account. Farage responded to the allegation by stating: "I categorically deny saying those things" which Ettedgui said was "fundamentally dishonest". When questioned by ITV News about the allegations of racist behaviour, Farage said: "I don't apologise for things that are complete made-up fantasies. Some of what I heard was just absolute nonsense by people with very obvious, if you looked, political motivation." One Black former Dulwich College pupil told The Guardian that Farage allegedly made repeated racist remarks targeting him, including "That's the way back to Africa", "simply because of how I looked". Farage denied saying anything racist or antisemitic directly at an individual and suggested that the claims were politically motivated. The author and journalist Michael Crick said that Farage could be friendly with children from minority ethnic backgrounds. The Rev Neil Fairlamb, a former teacher at Dulwich College, said he did not see racism from Farage. Deakin added that she believed school leaders had overlooked repeated accounts of troubling behaviour raised by pupils and teachers at the time. In his 2010 autobiography, Farage wrote that the outrage was because staff "deplored my spirited defence of Enoch Powell". Responding in 2013, Farage stated: "Of course I said some ridiculous things. Not necessarily racist things. It depends how you define it." He acknowledged that his statements as a pupil "would offend deeply". ==Early career==

After leaving school in 1982, Farage obtained employment in the City of London, as a commodities trader. 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 and to stand for them, both of which 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". He would 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, asked him to retract his comments and warned of potential "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. Charles, Prince of Wales was invited to speak to the European Parliament in 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 "naive 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. 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". 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. 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 was a founder member of UKIP in 1993. Former UKIP leader Alan Sked has alleged that, shortly before the 1997 general election, Farage urged him to drop the party's ban on former National Front members standing as UKIP candidates. According to Sked, when he objected, Farage allegedly replied that they should not "worry about the nigger vote. Nig-nogs will never vote for us." Farage dismissed this allegation by Sked as "complete rubbish". When questioned in 2014 about Sked's claim, Farage stated that only Sked had made that allegation and "in politics all sorts of disappointments happen to people and they throw mud." On 12 September 2006 Farage 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." 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 with 12,529 votes 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. 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 banner became caught in the tailplane, forcing the nose of the aircraft 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. , 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. He called the victory "a real sea change in British politics". 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. 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. In 2013, Farage voiced opposition to same-sex marriage. In October 2014, Farage said that immigrants who are HIV-positive and those with tuberculosis should not be let into the UK and that the UK's public services could not cope with extra demand created by people with severe medical conditions coming to Britain. 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 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 dismissed 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 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 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". 2016–2019 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." He added that this resignation was final: "I won't be changing my mind again, I can promise you", Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission, described Farage as a "retro-nationalist", 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." Diane James was elected as Farage's replacement, however she signed the declaration of acceptance with vi coactus after her signature which meant the Electoral Commission could not legally process the change of leadership. James opted not to accept the leadership, leading to Farage continuing as interim leader due to still being recognised by the Electoral Commission until Paul Nuttall was elected in November. 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". 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 ==

(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, 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 2019, 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. 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". 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. 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. == 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. 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. He became the party's honorary president and was replaced as the party's leader by Richard Tice. 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. 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 said that he was "open-minded" about joining the Conservative Party after the general election, more than 30 years after he left the party. In November 2024, Farage was not invited to speak at a farmers' protest outside Downing Street, with organisers citing concerns that his involvement could politicise the event, particularly in light of Brexit's impact on agriculture. While some close to Farage claimed political pressure from the Conservative Party, the organisers stressed the protest was focused on farmers' issues, such as controversial inheritance tax changes. Farage voiced support on social media, but many farmers opposed his presence, believing it would detract from their cause. 2024 general election 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. Farage chose to replace Anthony 'Tony' Mack as the Reform UK candidate for Clacton. According to Mack, Farage said that the expenses that Mack had spent campaigning with his own money, totalling £8,500, would be paid back to him. Mack alleged he was never compensated and decided to instead run as an independent against Farage, stating: "I fear for the future of Reform unless it is democratised." 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 oppose the UK government's current net zero target. 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 stated that Reform UK would lower the tax burden to encourage people into work. He stated in another interview that if he won power, he would remove university tuition fees 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". 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. Member of Parliament , 9 July 2024 Amid riots in July and August 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 by Steve Rotheram, the Mayor of Liverpool City Region, of giving legitimacy to acts of violence, after releasing a video in which he said he did not support violence, but that the protests were "nothing to what could happen over the course of the next few weeks". In September 2024, 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 Party nominee Donald Trump, meeting Trump at a rally on 4 November 2024 and attending Trump's exclusive Mar-a-Lago watch party on 5 November 2024. Farage also travelled to attend the Republican National Convention in July 2024. In December 2024, it was reported that American businessman Elon Musk was planning a $100 million donation to the Reform UK party to influence the next UK election. Farage said that talk of a $100m donation to his party was "pure speculation", stating: "I've heard nothing of the kind". That month Farage travelled to Florida, US, to meet Musk, a trip partly financed by his friend George Cottrell, who had served a prison sentence for fraud in 2017. In January 2025, Musk called for Farage to be replaced as leader of Reform UK. Farage suggested that this was due to a disagreement over Musk's support for far-right activist Tommy Robinson and said he aimed to "mend fences" with Musk. Farage has frequently hailed Musk as a "hero". (CPAC) in Maryland, US In January 2025, Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative Party leader, called for a "long overdue" national public inquiry into the "rape gangs scandal," criticising the Labour government for not supporting a government-led inquiry into Oldham's case. Farage responded by accusing both major parties of failing victims over the years and a week later announced that Reform would raise money to appoint "independent arbiters" to examine gang rapes across Britain if the government refused to do it itself. In March 2025, in an interview with the Daily Mail, fellow Reform MP Rupert Lowe criticised the governance of Reform UK as "a protest party lead by the Messiah", suggesting he might leave the party if things did not change, and saying it was too early to tell if Nigel Farage would make a good prime minister. Farage disputed Lowe's criticism of himself and Reform UK, describing his personal following as a good thing, and went on to suggest Lowe's remarks were driven by a desire to be Prime Minister himself. On 20 June 2025, Farage voted "No" to the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill. On 3 September 2025, he travelled to the US and testified before the Republican-led House judiciary committee about the state of free speech in the UK; he criticised British hate speech laws and the implementation of the Online Safety Act 2023, likening Starmer's government to the North Korean regime. In September 2025, Farage suggested that swans from Royal Parks were being eaten and that carp were being taken out of ponds by eastern European migrants. In December 2025, Essex Police began assessing allegations that Reform UK overspent on Farage's campaign to become an MP in Clacton in the 2024 United Kingdom general election. The claims were made by Richard Everett, a former Reform UK councillor. A Reform spokesperson denied the party had broken electoral law, saying the "inaccurate claims come from a disgruntled former councillor". Essex Police later said that an investigation could not take place because more than a year had passed since the alleged offence. The Electoral Commission said it would take no further action on the allegations, stating: "We did not identify credible evidence of potential offences of electoral law." On 17 February 2026, Farage announced the creation of his frontbench team. In February 2026, protesters travelled to the Chagos Archipelago, their former homeland, aiming to permanently settle in the UK territory and complicate plans to cede the islands to Mauritius. Farage flew to the nearby Maldives intending to travel aboard a yacht that was due to resupply them on Île du Coin. Farage's failure to disclose the donation is being investigated by the Electoral Commission and has been referred to the parliamentary commissioner for standards. Cameo videos Cameo customers pay a fee for a chosen celebrity, Farage in this case, to produce a short video clip for them, of usually less than a minute, based on an outline script that they provide. Farage joined Cameo in 2021 and has published more than 4,000 personalised clips on that platform since then. In 2021, Farage 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. In December 2025, LBC reported that Farage had spoken 90 times more often in Cameo videos than in speeches on the floor of Parliament. Farage had made approximately 2,000 fan videos in the preceding 12 months on Cameo (typically filming inside jokes for people's birthdays), earning himself over £140,000 from doing so, in comparison to speaking in Parliament 22 times. In The Spectator, Douglas Murray defended Farage, saying he "has done nothing wrong in any of these videos. Yet his critics will keep on digging". On 20 March 2026, Farage stopped offering his personalised service on Cameo. Reform UK said it was "paused for security reasons". ==Political positions==

Farage's personal views and his leadership of UKIP and Reform UK has been described as right-wing populist, Eurosceptic and anti-immigration by journalistic sources and news media. Farage has been associated with euroscepticism throughout his political career and was described as "The face of Euroscepticism in the UK" by a BBC News profile in 2017. Farage was a member of the Conservative Party but left in protest of John Major's signing of the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. He has supported Britain's withdrawal from the European Union and has advocated for leaving the European Convention of Human Rights. Farage has been associated with anti-immigration politics and consequently has been labelled as a far-right politician by the French newspaper Le Monde. Other political commentators and analysts such as Stephen Daisley and Matthew Goodwin, the latter a Reform UK activist and former political candidate himself, have disputed the "far-right" label while Farage himself has rejected it. In 2024, The Daily Telegraph referred to Farage and Reform UK as centre-right while The Independent political editor David Maddox has observed that Farage has adopted traditionally left-wing politics on certain economic issues since the 2020s alongside right-wing stances on national identity and immigration. In other areas, Farage has voiced scepticism about climate change. In foreign policy, he suggests NATO and EU expansion provoked Russia's invasion of Ukraine while expressing his personal dislike of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Farage has expressed his displeasure with the terms under which abortions are allowed in the UK, saying "I am pro-choice, but I think it's ludicrous, utterly ludicrous, that we can allow abortion up to 24 weeks". In October 2025, it was announced that the British academic and anti-abortion theologian James Orr had been appointed as a senior advisor to Farage. He was paid £13,000 to give a speech on a 2024 visit to the USA. Farage described UK abortion buffer zones as a "crackdown on free expression" which was "becoming very sinister". According to The Observer he reportedly told "a room full of abortion abolitionists, extreme faith groups and alt-right groups" that they were "saving Western civilisation". ==Media career==

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 on Monday to Thursday evenings. In March 2019, 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. Ofcom decided that Farage had not broken their broadcasting code since he clarified that he meant a verbal attack. 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. GB News In June 2021 Farage joined the British news channel GB News to host the Sunday morning political discussion programme The Political Correction. In July 2021, he began hosting the Monday to Thursday evening show Farage. Farage was earning nearly £1.2m a year from GB News. ''I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!'' In November 2023, appeared 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. ==Public opinion==

Farage is known for his fashion sense, and social media presence, as well as his form of British right-wing populism. He was ranked second in The Daily Telegraph "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 Right Power List in 2023, described as "the most influential person on the British right". On who would make the most capable prime minister, respondents gave Farage (25%) a clear lead over Starmer (19%) and Badenoch (9%), though there was "little enthusiasm" for those party leaders (47% picked none of them). A late 2025 YouGov poll found that Farage is less popular among ethnic minorities than the wider public, with 13% having a favourable opinion while 79% have an unfavourable one. ==Personal life==

at Lord's Cricket Ground Farage resides in Single Street, a hamlet in the London Borough of Bromley, "around the corner from his mother". 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. 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 May 2017, he described himself as "53, separated, skint", citing 20 years of campaigning as the reason for both. In 2023, it was reported that Farage had been in a relationship with the French politician Laure Ferrari for several years. They first met in 2007 when Ferrari was working as a waitress. 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 was until 2021 a member of the East India Club, 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". During the early 2010s, he advocated for the defense of Christians and what he regards as "Christian values". In 2024, during a GB News interview, he stated that he is no longer attending the Church of England due to its "woke policies". In a 2025 Bloomberg podcast with Mishal Husain, he reiterated his membership in the Church of England but called the church "a catastrophe for the last 25 years." He added that if he were a regular church attendee, he would probably attend the Catholic Church. 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. In August 2024 it was revealed that Farage was earning in excess of £1 million a year from his employment outside parliament, in addition to his salary as an MP. The figure included earnings of nearly £1.2 million per 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. In the time from Farage being elected as an MP in July 2024 to May 2025, he went abroad at least nine times and went on holiday to France while Parliament was sitting in May 2025. During the same timeframe, over 800 hours of his employment has been on work outside being an MP. , Farage owns several properties, including one worth around a million pounds in Kent, two houses in Lydd-on-Sea and a property in Surrey. 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. The story was picked up by the UK press. It was later revealed that Farage's account had been closed partly because 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 October 2023, it was reported that the ICO ruled that Rose had 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". ==Bibliography==