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4 hours ago
6
Happy days. Ten glorious years. Maybe it was the chance to bask in the unmitigated triumphs of the UK’s decision to leave the EU. Maybe he wanted to take advantage of a rare lacuna. The vacuum between the last rites of the Keir Starmer government and the handover to Andy Burnham. The man from Makerfield who had only a few days ago been in such a hurry now finds he needs more time to get his ducks in a row. Or maybe it was just the hope that amnesia had set in. That it was safe to come out. Whatever it was, Nigel Farage chose to break cover.
For more than eight weeks now the Reform leader has been a virtual recluse. From having to meet his cravings for an instant fix with two or three press conferences a week, Nige has refused to do any media. He has been in hiding. Only seen out with a few friendly faces. Posting videos of himself alone in a field where reporters can’t find him. Any suggestions that this has anything to do with the £5m gift, or whatever you want to call it, are obviously hopelessly wide of the mark. Nige just wants to be alone. To take a Garbo moment. Some me-time with the person he loves most in the world.
But come Tuesday morning, Farage had decided to break his omertà. The silent retreat was over. Within a few hours he was wondering why he had bothered. All the positive energy he had accrued had been dissipated in a wave of hostility. Why couldn’t people just accept what he told them. Even when he kept telling them something different. All that work he had put into aligning his chakras had gone to waste. Time to close the eyes and expand his consciousness. Om.
Nick Robinson went first on the Today programme. Wasn’t it game over for Reform now Starmer had gone? Nige had lost his prime asset. Not a bit of it. What was now needed was a general election. Because we couldn’t have Burnham walking straight into Downing Street like so many other prime ministers had. At which point the first wave of creeping hypocrisy cut in. Somehow it had been just fine for Tories, such as Honest Bob Jenrick, Suella Braverman, Danny Kruger and Andrew Rossindell to jump ship without triggering a byelection. That was just democracy at work. Yet for Burnham there could be no coronation.
Er, hello. Somehow it had also escaped Nige’s attention that he had had an ideal opportunity to nip the Andy Revival in the bud. All he had had to do was win the byelection and Burnham would have retreated to Manchester. Only Reform had lost and lost big. “We did get 16,000 votes,” Farage protested. “Ordinarily that would have been enough to win.” Except Andy got 25,000 votes and every single one of them knew they were voting for more than just a local MP. Nige seemed to be under the impression he deserved some credit for coming a distant second. He’s yet to get the gist of the electoral system.
“Maybe you had the wrong candidate,” suggested Robinson, trying to be helpful. Not a bit of it, insisted Nige. A local boy, rugby-playing plumber who liked a beer was just what had been needed. It was just a bit of a shame he had a long history of sexism, misogyny and crude fantasies about Carol Vorderman. Or just ordinary male banter, as Farage liked to put it. Nick wondered why Reform had not replaced Rob Kenyon or got him to apologise.
“I said it’s up to you, Rob,” Nige explained. “I can’t force you to apologise.” This sounded very much like Farage chucking Kenyon under the bus. Rob had been his useful idiot for the duration of the byelection campaign. Now he was just another useless idiot. Dead to Farage. It’s always been Nige’s policy never to apologise for anything and Kenyon had always given the appearance of being someone out of his depth. Always trying to do whatever Reform central command told him to. So if he didn’t apologise, he was only obeying orders. Now he’s just another bit of jetsam discarded from Satellite Nige.
Then we got to the money. Something that would also bother Nick Ferrari on LBC and Sally Nugent on BBC Breakfast. Would Farage be OK with a prime minister secretly banking a £5m cheque from a Thai-based crypto-billionaire whose business he was promoting? Now we got to the thin-skinned Nige. The tetchy Nige. The Nige who likes to dish it out but can’t take it when the roles are reversed. He hadn’t been promoting someone else’s business. He had been promoting his own. Hmm. Possibly both?
The questions kept on coming. Why had Nige kept the money secret? He hadn’t. “But you didn’t reveal it.” said Nick. “Why should I?” Farage snapped. Er … because people should govern in the national interest not in that of themselves or their mates.
Now Nige went wild. It was his money. He could spend it on whatever he wanted. He could buy a Ferrari. Though not Nick Ferrari. He could lose it on the horses. He couldn’t even really remember why he had been given the money as his story has changed so often. It was a personal gift. It was a thank you for his political career. And it was obviously a total coincidence he had chosen to stand as an MP a month after the money cleared.
“NOBODY CARES ABOUT THE MONEY,” Farage yelled. “NOBODY CARES.” Except a lot of people do. It’s a matter of public trust. And the parliamentary standards watchdog is also interested. So much so that he’s investigating the money. For the last two years, Nige has rightly called out Starmer for the free suits and glasses. Now he’s taken nearly 300 times more and can’t see the problem.
We ended with Brexit. Did he have any regrets? He had promised it would reduce immigration and make us all richer. It has done precisely the opposite. But no, Nige had no regrets at all. He would do it all again in a heartbeat. Far better to be broke than tied to Brussels. In any case there had been a betrayal of the One True Bexit. The Thousand Year Brexit. The establishment that had implemented Brexit had never truly believed. They had tried to usurp it from within. It was all down to the Blob. They were the ones to blame.
At which point, Robinson did Nige a favour and cut him off. It’s never a good look for an interviewee when you wind up making Liz Truss look sane.
