Thursday 2nd February 2012 | 20:00

Farage the Federalist

The constantly surprising Nigel Farage explains why he’s not averse to a federal model of government for the British Isles – but continues to abhor it in Europe.

WORDS: JOHN ASHMORE

When journalists talk about politicians “showing some leg”, they don’t often mean it literally. So, it’s something of a surprise when Nigel Farage rolls his left trouser leg up to show what remains of his shin after a violent encounter with the front of a Volskwagen Beetle in the late 1980s.

The leader of the UK Independence Party agrees that he’s led something of a charmed life. “Remarkable, isn’t it… remarkable, can’t believe my luck… can’t believe it, I should have been wiped out a couple of times.”
It was also almost all over for Farage during the 2010 general election, when he narrowly avoided death in a plane crash. Not that that has stopped him naming his autobiography, Flying Free. With his self-deprecating candour, there’s not much danger of Farage becoming one of the “cardboard cut-out identikits masquerading as modern-day elected politicians” whom he reviles.

He’s an intriguing character, with some views one might not expect. On Scotland, for instance, he confesses to becoming a convert to the cause of self-determination. This is one federation he feels comfortable to support.
“I’m very happy for Scotland to have greater autonomy. I have no problem with that at all. I think it would be better for all concerned if we kept together in a union, but a redefined union. In fact, I’m going to use the ‘f’ word. How about that? Not in the context of Europe, but in the context of the United Kingdom. I’m happy to have a federal United Kingdom.”

Farage is also happy to admit that Ukip has “an image problem”, but insists they are doing their best not to be seen as “disgusted of Tunbridge Wells”. He sees great potential in new media – Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and the like – to get the Ukip message across, particularly in the face of what Farage sees as a hopelessly biased BBC.

“Obviously my little speciality has been YouTube, that’s been my niche. I had five last year that had between 500,000 and a million views, and the exciting thing about those is, as each one goes up, the proportion of UK viewers has got higher and higher, so I’m quite excited about that.

“I think all of this new media is a fantastic way of getting round the back of the Establishment media, and I think we as a party up against the Establishment have to be fairly nimble.” His reference to the “Establishment” speaks to Farage’s view of himself as an outsider. And it’s a mark of his combative style that he considers “consensual” a pejorative term. It’s a charge he aims at both David Cameron and George Osborne, though he insists he holds no personal animus against either.

“Perfectly nice people, very decent human beings, very genuine, very sincere, I don’t doubt any of that. You’d never hear me slag them off as human beings, but they are part of the ruling classes by birth. They are consensual, status quo figures, and the situation this country is in today doesn’t need the status quo; it needs a bit of radicalism, and I don’t think it’s going to come from them.” Unsurprisingly, he was underwhelmed by Cameron’s ‘veto’ at the end of last year, the reaction to which he sees as “extraordinary”.

“It showed how desperate everybody on the Conservative side is; desperate to want to believe in David Cameron; desperate for some eurosceptic gesture of some kind, after now nearly two years of total and utter let-down.” He expects the eurozone to push on with an agreement regardless, and warns starkly about the poisonous attitude towards the UK that the prime minister’s move has engendered.

“If we thought that as a result of that, the City of London was being protected, my goodness me, it’s more vulnerable now than it was before that summit, because there is now a mood, an air of retribution in Brussels; such hatred of the City of London and the Brits amongst the European political class has never been greater.”
It’s a feeling Farage knows only too well from his fellow MEPs, some of whom treat him with “real vitriol”.

But does he deserve it after his withering personal attack on Herman van Rompuy?
“I think if you look at most of the rest of my speeches, I’ve tried to use a bit of humour, I’ve made a few people smile, I’ve teased a bit. Crikey, look at the barrage I’ve had back from them, absolute barrage.
“So, no, I don’t think, other than the Van Rompuy speech, I don’t think I’ve been disparaging, I think I’ve been fairly straightforwardly honest.”

When he talks about Europe, defence or the abolition of grammar schools (“one of the biggest social disasters in this country”), he sounds like a textbook Thatcherite. He once was one – he joined the Tories aged 14, inspired, he tells me, by Keith Joseph – only to leave when a Conservative government took Britain into the Exchange Rate Mechanism.

However, he insists he is “not in politics for tribal reasons”, and cheerfully lists a few Labour MPs – Kate Hoey (“absolutely wonderful”), Austin Mitchell and Frank Field – whom he particularly admires.
He also suggests, intriguingly, that there may be as many as 100 Tory MPs who share his views on the EU. He claims many have been privately agreeing with Ukip for some time, and have only been able to make their views more publicly known because of his party’s “softening the ground” for them. And the likes of Douglas Carswell and Daniel Hannan would be very welcome in Ukip, he adds.

“I think a lot of these people would benefit Ukip; they’d benefit the cause. They wouldn’t be able to act as decoy ducks taking votes away from where they ought to be going.” This is a fear for Ukip, that certain MPs will be “cynically used” by Cameron to present the Conservatives as more Eurosceptic than they actually are. “Actually what may happen, brave though some of these people have been, is they will actually act to gain more votes for a party that has completely the opposite agenda to the one they do, rather than that vote coming to Ukip.”

There are, perhaps unsurprisingly, a number of politicians who leave him “cheesed off”. He reserves particular disdain for former Europe minister Denis MacShane, who assailed Farage over his expenses, only to then find himself under investigation.

Chris Hhune, the MP for Eastleigh, where Farage fought his first campaign, is another target for a verbal whipping. “I mean, the more you hear about all this, the Theresa May business, the Michael Gove… he just strikes me as the sort of guy who wouldn’t know how to play a straight bat if you paid him. He sort of embodies, doesn’t he, what people distrust and dislike about politics, and that’s how I feel about him.”

Despite his occasionally vituperative tone and railing against “nonsense” of various kinds, Farage insists he is not an aggressive character. “My job is not to hate people, I don’t hate people, I’m not made that way.” I sense a sting in the tail. He pauses briefly. “I’m contemptuous of many”.

John Ashmore is assistant news editor of PoliticsHome