“This is a victory for ordinary people, for good people, for decent people”
Well fuck Nigel, I guess I’m not ordinary, good or decent (along with 48% of the voting population).
With the consequences of Brexit only beginning we are already seeing a rupture in the masks of it’s most visible architects. I don’t want to fixate on Nigel Farage – he doesn’t deserve half the oxygen he breathes, let alone my time and thought – but I want to just sketch out this media darling slightly differently than the pint drinking, cigar smoking, non-PC, everyman, political underdog, hero the right wing press scrawls him out to be.
He went to Dulwich College, a fancy private school in London where he was “quite ballsy, unafraid of the limelight… a bit noisy” (Farage). Here he received careers advice from a cricketer, and was inspired to join the Conservative Party by Enoch Powell… bloody hell.
Moving onto a slightly older Nigel, it was destiny, or perhaps privilege, that drove him into a career in the City. It’s been said that “Farage has City culture in his blood: his father Guy Justus Oscar Farage was a well-known, hard-drinking stockbroker and his brother Andrew became a broker on the London Metal Exchange” (Financial Times). And, what do you know, his first job after completing his A levels – which in his own words were “pretty unremarkable” (Farage) – was with Maclaine Watson & Co. Ltd, a centuries old metals broker.
His trailblazing route into the city followed the same trail his brother blazed, his father blazed and his grandfather before them, as Farage states he was “following in my father and grandfather’s footsteps” (Farage). So not so much a trail as it was a wide, ashen road. Not that there is anything wrong with following a family profession, but there is more a flavour of nepotism to this tale than meritocracy.
On a side note around this time he got hit and seriously injured by a car, fell in love with his nurse (later to be his first wife) and was treated for testicular cancer.
Anyway, with his “gregarious, laddish ways” (BBC) he was a hit with clients and fellow traders. Because everyone loves someone who is loud and obnoxious don’t they… But he was a least good at all that wheeler-dealer-ing wasn’t he? He says it was “alcoholic like you cannot believe and, frankly, we were pretty amateur. There were terrible cock-ups in the afternoon as a result” (Farage). Oh… but you know, what a lad… getting drunk, losing peoples money for them?… No, just more being mediocre, but becoming arrogant, another quote from Nige: “It was like being back at school – but with money” (Farage). So more being unremarkable statistically, but loud enough that people paid attention… oh dear.
Nigel was clearly loving his little “Psmith in the City” bubble life, but things began to change as the financial sector was deregulated, becoming more competitive, less idiosyncratic and with fewer 12 hour lunches. As his father exclaimed “You’ve ruined the best gentleman’s club in the world” (FT). Strangely, Farage became disillusioned with City life at this time, and began to move into politics.
When John Mayor strengthened our ties to Europe Nigel quit the Conservatives and became a founding member of UKIP. Fully embracing euro-scepticism, it was around this period he quit his first family and began courting his second wife. To his credit (?) he rode the wilderness of the lunatic fringe for a good while until he finally won a seat in the European Parliament. Finally, a chance to prove his political nous.
As a member of the European parliament he… hang on I’m just looking… lowest voting record of any MEP, hmmm… ah, went to 1 of 42 meetings over 3 years as a member of fisheries committee, oh only one er… ranked 748 out of 751 MEPs on attendance… claimed £200,000 a year in expenses for over ten years and failed to declare gifts? Okay, so not great, but on the being loud and obnoxious front he spent his time in Brussels accusing Herman Van Rompuy of lacking charisma, helped table votes of no confidence whenever he could (they all failed).
I think its evident his career in politics hasn’t been successful – he is a terrible politician. When it comes to the actual work of making policy, he is a complete no-show. The only thing he is good at is being gregarious (loud) and laddish (obnoxious). So he’s set himself up as the Saloon Philosopher of the Daily Mail reader’s dreams, tearing down and criticising with no sense of how to develop or improve – just the nostalgic sense that things were better when… who the fuck knows. Russell Brand had him in 2014 – “This man is not a cartoon character, he isn’t Del Boy or Arthur Daley, he’s a pound shop Enoch Powell” (Russell Brand). He is a chancer trying to make a name for himself, using what intelligence he has to bluster his way through life.
Around this time he nearly died in a plane crash.
It’s strange how with each brush with death he has doubled down on his convictions, become louder, more obnoxious – not questioned his choices, or learnt some humility. He hasn’t grown as a person, just become more arrogantly determined he’s right and justified… Bizarrely, it now appears he’s burnt through another relationship, becoming estranged from his second family.
What is interesting to the current situation we find ourselves in is this little statement:
“Not only did trading in the City help whet my appetite for taking a gamble, it taught me how to get out when the trade started to go wrong” (Farage)
It’s becoming abundantly clear that brexit was and is a gamble. Farage and the other agitators have no interest in the long term negotiation, they’ve just been in it for the gamble. Not the negotiation, not the policy… just a gamble on how much they could make in the constitutional car boot sale that will be the aftermath. No – you won your battle, now fuck off and finally die in a corner.
Sources:
Financial Times Telegraph BBC The Guardian Independent Telegraph Express
And his wikipedia page too probably.