Nigel Farage: I’m The Most Courageous British Politician Since Churchill
Nigel Farage (Credit: Tom Pilston)
14 min read
Finally an MP at the eighth attempt, Nigel Farage now has a shot at No 10. He tells Tom Scotson and Harriet Symonds how he plans to deal with those that stand in his way, what Westminster can learn from Strasbourg and why he’s keeping out of Keir Starmer’s relationship with Donald Trump
Nigel Farage pulls out a cigar. A gift from British billionaire Frederick Barclay, he explains as he lights up, smoke curling over the Thames.
It also serves as a handy prop while he meditates on the calibre of the mainstream party leaders – and his own stature. “I don’t think we’ve been led for years by particularly courageous people. I wouldn’t follow them into war,” declares the Reform UK leader.
In that case, would he say that he is the most courageous politician since Winston Churchill? “Right now? Yes.”
Farage has never lacked chutzpah. Now – when the party he leads tops every opinion poll, and he is being taken seriously as a potential prime minister – is no time for false modesty. “That’s not to say there are people out there better than me. There probably are. I just can’t see who they are right at this moment in time.”
The 61-year-old does have a decent claim to be one of the most consequential politicians of the post-war era. He forced David Cameron into offering voters a choice on whether to stay in the EU and made a deal with Boris Johnson to ensure Brexit “got done”.
But so far, his success has been as a provocateur, an influencer. Now, for the first time, he is the one in charge: the leader of a party that administers a dozen councils and spends taxpayers’ money. And – at the eighth time of asking – he is an MP.
That’s not to say there are people out there better than me. There probably are. I just can’t see who they are right at this moment in time
Speaking to The House on the Commons terrace, the tension between outsider Farage and insider Farage is never far away. At one point, his press aide wants to order “a few bottles” but is thwarted by recess opening hours.
More seriously, Farage is confronted with the knotty problems confronting the British state: a stagnating economy, public finances weighted with debt and, of course, the tens of thousands of migrants crossing the Channel each year.
If Reform really is to form the next government, it must convince voters the party can manage the economy better than, say, Liz Truss, whose 2022 mini-Budget was described by Farage at the time as the “best Conservative budget since 1986”.
Three years later, Farage claims Truss had the right ideas – but implemented them in the wrong order. She should, he says, have cut spending before taxes. He shares, too, some of the former prime minister’s suspicions that the Bank of England actively undermined her.
The central problem, the millstone of debt – now close to the previously unconscionable 100 per cent of GDP – sustains. Farage says failure to bring it down represents an existential threat: “If we don’t, we’re done for… Gilts will become junk bonds. If we don’t, we’ll become a third-world country in terms of relative prosperity.”
It is always easier to talk of spending cuts in general rather than specific terms, however, and easier still to promise more state action.
Reform UK leader smoking a cigar on the parliamentary terrace (Credit: Tom Pilston)
In recent months, Reform has made a series of pledges, including scrapping the two-child limit on benefits and extra cash for policing, while saying only that they would ditch the remaining HS2 project and efforts to reach net-zero.
Farage dismisses claims, including those from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, that its pledge to raise the income tax personal allowance threshold to £20,000 alone could cost the taxpayer £80bn. That pledge was before last year’s election, however, and the party leader says promises made since equate to “tiny amounts” of spending.
“I want to stop HS2 – that’ll save £70bn. I want to stop net-zero – that’ll save £30-40bn a year.”
It is, of course, Donald Trump who is the most significant factor in determining whether the UK can finally dig itself out of the holes caused by the global financial crisis, Brexit, and the pandemic. At the time of the interview, Farage seemed happy to have surrendered his status as the US President’s best British friend to Keir Starmer – but was pictured just this week alongside Trump in the Oval Office after testifying on free speech before US congress.
“I’m not speaking with him very much,” Farage admits, but reveals he had dinner recently with his son Donald Trump Jr, who earlier this year hinted that he may run for president himself at the end of his father’s second – and according to the US constitution at least – final term.
“I’ve not really been in touch with him,” he says of the President, “because it’s now an awkward situation. He’s in direct negotiation with the British Prime Minister. If I am seen to be in the middle of this, intervening, I’ll be accused of messing it all up. So I should kind of just let that lie, for now.”
Though their relationship has changed, Farage remains full of praise: “Trump’s instincts on the world stage have always been that of a peacemaker, which I’ve admired.
“I think he’s finally seen that [Vladimir] Putin just is not anyone you can do business with, and that puts a whole different slant on things. I do think the Abraham Accords at the end of the first Trump administration were an incredible achievement. Domestically, the American economy, the tariff stuff, caused a few little flips and flops,” he adds.
Trump’s attempts to move on from his controversial friendship with Jeffrey Epstein have left him in hot water with his core base. Elon Musk blew this open when he claimed Trump was in the Epstein files; reporting has since confirmed he is named in undisclosed documents, though this is not evidence of wrongdoing.
How much does Farage think the saga is splitting the President’s Maga base? “Big time. Big time, big time.
“You’ve got [Steve] Bannon on his case, you’ve got Tucker [Carlson] on his case, you’ve got Charlie Kirk on his case, and he’s got to find a way through that pretty quickly.”
Peter Mandelson, the UK ambassador to the US, once cultivated a close relationship with Epstein, having been pictured with the disgraced financier in the Caribbean shopping in 2005. Rather than criticise the architect of New Labour, however, Farage rushes to his defence.
“How could anybody in American [high] society in New York in the 80s and 90s not have had links with Epstein?” Farage asks, adding: “His business empire, his social empire, his tentacles went very, very deep through American society.
“So, the idea that you’re guilty by association because you knew Epstein – I mean, you would put the whole of America in jail who were prominent people in business or media in the 1980s.”
It would be monstrous if the Civil Service stops us from carrying out cuts, reforms and changes that we actually want
The UK will recognise a Palestinian state at the UN general assembly in September unless Israel agrees to a ceasefire and commits to a two-state solution. When asked whether the UK is still a good ally of Israel, Farage pauses for a moment before answering: “Not particularly. I don’t think David Lammy is.”
“I know what is happening in Gaza appals everybody, but equally Hamas’ behaviour, Hamas’ propaganda, Hamas’ deliberate use of human shields is pretty vile and pretty repulsive,” he adds.
Farage, 61, talks to The House magazine ahead of the party's conference in Birmingham in September (Credit: Tom Pilston)
Israel’s actions in Gaza, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, have angered many of the country’s close allies. “Is Netanyahu very good at losing friends? Yes, he’s very good at it.”
Farage campaigned for the release of Emily Damari, a British-Israeli citizen who was held hostage by Hamas for more than 400 days. “We’re in touch with the family. I very much want to go and see her. I hoped to go and see her in April, but the election campaign [happened],” he says.
“At some point I will go and visit her. She’s very keen that I go and see her. I did champion her. It was a remarkable situation. We had a British hostage being held by Hamas, and no one knew, no one knew.”
Farage has made immigration a central plank of his pitch, pledging to deport 600,000 migrants if his party wins the next general election. On the issue of small boats specifically, the Reform leader adds that success can only be achieved when there are zero Channel crossings.
“The only success. Australia got to zero, we have to wait for that,” he insists. Criticising Labour’s ‘one in one out’ migration deal with France, he says: “We’re now being asked to pay for France’s mistakes and EU’s mistakes. We don’t need to. There’s no agreement needed.”
President Emmanuel Macron’s state visit in June signalled a reset in relations after the tumult of the Brexit years. But Farage – snubbed by the French President during the visit – is not on board with the new entente cordiale. “On the recent state visit of Napoleon – oh, sorry, no, he’s not Napoleon is he, he’s called something else – he might as well have been Napoleon, I mean, the open top carriages through Windsor, addresses to the joint houses – all the things Trump won’t get,” he says.
“We risk relationships with France different from those that Keir Starmer would like.”
Taking on Paris is critical to solving the Channel crossing, he says – but so is the ‘major roadblock’ caused by the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) that deters “gutless” politicians in Westminster.
Farage clearly worries that the ‘deep state’ might block him from governing if he makes it to No 10. “There is a worry about obstruction. We’re seeing a bit of that in the counties already. If you get elected on a very clear mandate, and if the state stops you from doing it, then you have to take quite radical action,” he warns.
“It would be monstrous if the Civil Service stops us from carrying out cuts, reforms and changes that we actually want. It would be an outrage if that was to happen. If an agenda is set out honestly and clearly beforehand of what we want to do, and the Civil Service stopped it, there’d be a constitutional crisis.”
To push his agenda through, Farage hints at flooding the House of Lords with business figures who can serve in his government. Gordon Brown’s decision to put former CBI director general Digby Jones in the House of Lords in 2007 was an “inspirational move”, he says: “I’ve thought that ever since, and if we’re in that position we’ll do more of that.”
“I know people will say I’m going to bypass the House. I’m not going to bypass the House, but we don’t need to think everything about British government has to have the letters ‘MP’ after it”, he says.
Farage tells The House magazine it would be "monstrous" if the civil service thwarted his plans for government (Credit: Tom Pilston)
Farage is still in favour of reforming the House of Lords, which he says has “become a bit of an abomination”.
“Constitutional reform is, without doubt, needed but can it be at the top of the agenda for a Reform government given all the other problems the country is facing? No. Is it important? Yes.”
Farage has a long history of broken relationships, dating back to his days as leader of Ukip and more recently his very public falling out with Reform’s former deputy leader Ben Habib and MP Rupert Lowe.
Farage has himself admitted his biggest weakness is the people he hires, so is he a good judge of character? “I’m still here. I’ve survived quite a long time. Look, business is so much easier. You choose people in business to work for you and if they don’t work out you find a way of resolving it as amicably as you can.”
Do I have enormous sympathies with the Blue Labour movement? You bet your life I do
When Zia Yusuf sensationally quit as party chairman in June, it was a relief for many in the party’s HQ. Now back as head of Doge – Reform’s echo of the Trump drive to cut bureaucracy – does he think Yusuf brings more good than harm? “We would not have achieved 1 May without him, how’s that?”
Undeniably, Farage remains instrumental to the party’s success, despite his protestations. “The Reform brand is now strong without me,” he insists.
But with no clear successor, how the party survives without him is uncertain. “You’re
always thinking about these things, of course,” says the Reform leader, though he admits he doesn’t have anyone in mind yet.
“Do I see a new generation coming into Reform that are going to make it a different party? I’m now fearing a female takeover,” he jokes. “The blokes could be discriminated against very shortly!” He chuckles before answering more seriously: “I have said it before: somebody younger and better looking and more capable than me will come along.
“We have moved beyond being a startup, but we’ve got a lot to do,” he concedes.
In the Labour Party, there is one group that has caught his attention. “Do I have enormous sympathies with the Blue Labour movement? You bet your life I do,” Farage says.
“Maurice Glasman is a great guy,” he says of its co-founder. “A lot of what he has to say, representing working people, their aspirations, are incredibly close to where we are.” (Glasman disagrees and calls Farage a “saloon bar Thatcherite”.)
“The big, transformational political movements in my lifetime that have occurred on the centre right have only succeeded by getting large numbers of votes from centre left, Reaganism, Thatcherism – and even Borisism in 2019,” continues Farage.
The Reform UK leader checking his phone as he is pictured on the parliamentary terrace (Credit: Tom Pilston)
Critical to the outcome of the next election will be whether Reform and the Conservatives can strike an electoral pact. He refuses to rule it out. “It’s very early days,” he says when asked if it will happen.
His press aide jumps in to stress that it is “way too soon” to be thinking about that. “I did them a bloody great big favour in 2019 and didn’t even get a ‘thank you’,” says Farage, who believes his standing aside led to Boris Johnson’s landslide victory on the promise to ‘Get Brexit Done’.
No love lost, he predicts Kemi Badenoch will be gone in less than a year. “They’ll keep Kemi until next May. She’ll be gone after May. After that, probably [ James] Cleverly,” he concludes.
An MEP for over a decade, Farage says he prefers it to the UK Parliament. “The European Parliament was enormous fun!”
Should the UK Parliament be more like the European Parliament? “Yes!” exclaims Farage. “We’re operating under 19th-century rules, and you wonder why the public aren’t as engaged with the House of Commons as much as they ought to be. I would modernise it significantly.”
Here, with Reform being the fourth-largest party, Farage is only granted one question in PMQs once every four weeks.
“I haven’t got the platform here,” he complains. “I was in seat number 20 for over 10 years, with the commission president in seat number 21. Secondly, I had more speaking time there than I can ever really get here. And thirdly, the rules here mean I can’t say what I want to say without being chucked out!”
The Reform leader is often drowned out in the Chamber when he stands to speak. During one heated PMQs in July, the Speaker said of the heckling and protestations in defence of the Reform leader: “Mr Farage is capable of dealing with his own battles, as we’ve seen on many occasions.”
The incident clearly rankles. “I perhaps did feel last time that I doubted whether many other MPs would have been shouted down with that intervention – and for me that’s quite a diplomatic answer,” he says.
He inhales the remnants of the cigar that he has burned throughout the interview. “The entrepreneur can never stop,” Farage says, reflecting on the 90-year-old Barclay, who has turned to cigar-making.
It’s a remark that might as well apply to himself. Has the relentless political entrepreneur finally found the winning formula – or will it all turn to ash?
