Nigel Paul Farage is a British broadcaster and former politician who was Leader of the UK Independence Party from 2006 to 2009 and 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Brexit Party from 2019 to 2021.
158 Facts About Nigel Farage
2.
Nigel Farage was Member of the European Parliament for South East England from 1999 until the United Kingdom's exit from the EU in 2020.
3.
Nigel Farage was the host of The Nigel Farage Show, a radio phone-in on the Global-owned talk radio station LBC, from 2017 to 2020.
4.
Nigel Farage was a founding member of UKIP, having left the Conservative Party in 1992 after the signing of the Maastricht Treaty, which furthered European integration and founded the European Union.
5.
Nigel Farage was re-elected in the 2004,2009,2014 and 2019 European Parliament elections.
6.
Nigel Farage became the leader of UKIP in September 2006, and led the party through the 2009 European elections, when it won the second-highest share of the UK popular vote, with over 2 million votes.
7.
Nigel Farage stepped down in November 2009 to focus on contesting Buckingham, the constituency of the Speaker, John Bercow, at the 2010 general election, and came third.
8.
Nigel Farage successfully stood in the November 2010 UKIP leadership contest, becoming leader after Lord Malcolm Pearson voluntarily stepped down.
9.
Nigel Farage was ranked second in The Daily Telegraph Top 100 most influential right-wingers poll in 2013, behind Prime Minister David Cameron.
10.
Nigel Farage was named "Briton of the Year" by The Times in 2014.
11.
Nigel Farage announced his resignation when he did not win the South Thanet seat, but his resignation was rejected and he remained as leader.
12.
Nigel Farage was a prominent figure in the successful campaign for Brexit in the 2016 EU membership referendum.
13.
Nigel Farage returned to frontline politics by launching the Brexit Party in 2019.
14.
Nigel Farage was born in Farnborough, Kent, England, the son of Barbara and Guy Justus Oscar Nigel Farage.
15.
Nigel Farage's father was a stockbroker who worked in the City of London.
16.
Nigel Farage's 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.
17.
Nigel Farage's grandfather, Harry Nigel Farage, was a private who fought and was wounded in the First World War.
18.
From 1975 to 1982, Nigel Farage was educated at Dulwich College, a fee-paying private school in south London.
19.
Nigel Farage was active in the Conservative Party from his school days, having seen a visit to his school by Enoch Powell and Keith Joseph.
20.
Nigel Farage joined Refco in 1994, and Natixis Metals in 2003.
21.
Nigel Farage joined the Conservative Party in 1978, but voted for the Green Party in 1989 because of what he saw as their then "sensible" and Eurosceptic policies.
22.
Nigel Farage left the Conservatives in 1992 in protest at Prime Minister John Major's government's signing of the Treaty on European Union at Maastricht.
23.
Nigel Farage was elected to the European Parliament in 1999 and re-elected in 2004,2009 and 2014.
24.
Nigel 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.
25.
Nigel 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".
26.
Nigel Farage 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.
27.
In early 2005 Nigel Farage requested that the European Commission disclose where the individual Commissioners had spent their holidays.
28.
Nigel 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.
29.
Nigel Farage was one of the main drivers behind the censure motion.
30.
Nigel Farage pledged to bring discipline to the party and to maximise UKIP's representation in local, parliamentary and other elections.
31.
At 10pm on 19 October 2006, Nigel Farage took part in a three-hour live interview and phone-in with James Whale on the national radio station talkSPORT.
32.
Nigel Farage said that Whale "not only has guts, but an understanding of what real people think".
33.
On 4 September 2009 Nigel 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.
34.
Nigel Farage later told The Times journalist Camilla Long that UKIP internal fights took up far too much time.
35.
Nigel 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.
36.
On 6 May 2010, the morning of the election, Nigel Farage was travelling in a two-seater PZL-104 Wilga aircraft with a pro-UKIP banner attached, when the plane crashed.
37.
Nigel Farage was charged with threatening to kill an AAIB official involved in the investigation into the accident.
38.
Nigel 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.
39.
Nigel Farage said that UKIP aspired to come top of the European elections, but Neil suggested UKIP were still seen as "unprofessional, amateur and even unacceptable".
40.
Nigel Farage was voted politician of the year by the online service MSN.
41.
In May 2013 Nigel Farage led UKIP to its best performance in a UK election.
42.
Nigel Farage was mobbed by well-wishers as he made his way to his favourite pub, the Marquis of Granby, for a celebratory drink.
43.
Nigel Farage called the victory "a real sea change in British politics".
44.
In May 2013 Nigel Farage was interrupted by protesters during a press conference in the Canon's Gait pub on Edinburgh's Royal Mile.
45.
Nigel 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.
46.
Nigel Farage 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.
47.
Nigel Farage has criticised the political discourse surrounding tax avoidance as a "race to the bottom".
48.
Nigel Farage has continued to have fees paid to him via a limited company, Thorn in the Side Ltd.
49.
In October 2013 Nigel Farage announced on the BBC's The Andrew Marr Show that he would stand for election as an MP at the 2015 United Kingdom 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.
50.
In October 2014 Nigel Farage was invited to take part in prospective Leaders' debates on BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky ahead of the 2015 general election.
51.
In March 2015 Nigel 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.
52.
On 22 March 2015 Nigel Farage was targeted by anti-UKIP activists who chased him and his family from a pub lunch in Downe, Greater London.
53.
Nigel Farage's daughters ran away to hide and were later found to be safe.
54.
Nigel Farage, when asked what he thought about the incident, called the protesters "scum".
55.
Nigel 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.
56.
On 11 May 2015 it was announced that Nigel 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 Nigel Farage's letter of resignation".
57.
O'Flynn accused Nigel 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.
58.
Nigel Farage faced a number of calls from senior figures within the party to stand down.
59.
Nigel Farage had said he was the victim of "trade union-funded activists" who were inciting vandalism.
60.
Nigel Farage was a key figurehead in the Brexit campaign of 2016, which, with 52 per cent of the vote, won.
61.
Nigel Farage initially supported Vote Leave and Leave.
62.
On 28 June 2016 Nigel 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.
63.
Nigel Farage insulted his fellow MEPs, stating that "virtually none" of them had ever had done "a proper job" in their lives.
64.
Nigel Farage stated that "politicians had lied all the way through" and that the Referendum act clearly said that the result was advisory.
65.
Nigel Farage talked of a peaceful protest and warned of unprecedented political anger if Parliament blocked Brexit.
66.
Miller said that parliamentary democracy required parliament to debate issues and that Nigel Farage had spent the whole Brexit campaign arguing for parliamentary sovereignty.
67.
Nigel Farage stated in November 2016 that she would not take legal action against those who had threatened her.
68.
On 7 November 2016 Nigel Farage announced he would lead a 100,000 strong march to the Supreme Court, timed for when it started hearing the Government appeal.
69.
The next day, Paul Nuttall became the new UKIP party leader after Nigel Farage decided to step aside to strengthen his relationship with US President-elect Donald Trump.
70.
In 2017 Nigel Farage called for the departure of UKIP's only MP, Douglas Carswell.
71.
On 20 April 2017 Nigel Farage announced that he would not contest the 2017 general election.
72.
Nigel Farage said that he believed he could further advance his version of Brexit as a leader of a group in the European Parliament.
73.
On 4 December 2018 Nigel 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.
74.
In explanation, Nigel 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.
75.
On 8 February 2019, the Financial Times quoted Nigel Farage as saying the new party was a "live vehicle" that could be "mobilised" if Brexit is delayed.
76.
The assailant, who was arrested at the scene, accused Nigel Farage of "spouting bile and racism".
77.
In June 2019, Donald Trump suggested that Nigel Farage should be involved in the UK government's Brexit negotiations, because he had "a lot to offer".
78.
Nigel Farage later announced that he would not be standing as a candidate.
79.
On 8 September 2019, Nigel 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.
80.
Nigel Farage said that his party and the Conservatives "together would be unstoppable".
81.
When Johnson's strategy changed and the UK introduced various lockdown measures to control the disease, Nigel Farage said in November 2020 he thought "the cure is worse than the disease" and announced the Brexit Party would rebrand as Reform UK and campaign against further lockdowns.
82.
Nigel Farage described lockdown as "cruel and unnecessary" and endorsed the 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.
83.
In 2020, Nigel Farage established a financial newsletter, Fortune and Freedom, which describes itself as "unregulated product published by Southbank Investment Research Limited".
84.
On 28 March 2021 Dutch Green Business announced Nigel Farage had been appointed to the firm's advisory board.
85.
On 6 March 2021 Nigel Farage announced in an interview with The Telegraph that he was retiring from politics and resigning as leader of Reform UK.
86.
In July 2021 Nigel Farage criticised the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, accusing them of being a "taxi service" for illegal immigrants.
87.
In November 2021 Nigel 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.
88.
Nigel Farage has been making videos on the Cameo platform, and has fallen victim to several pranks intended to make him refer to various Irish republican slogans.
89.
Nigel 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.
90.
In September 2022, Nigel Farage introduced a range of three gins made in Cornwall.
91.
In July 2016, Nigel Farage visited the Republican convention in Cleveland with his aide and office manager George Cottrell.
92.
Trump asked Nigel Farage to speak at the rally and introduced him to the crowd as "Mr Brexit".
93.
In October 2016 Nigel Farage praised Trump for "dominating" Hillary Clinton, comparing him to a silverback gorilla.
94.
Nigel Farage's comments prompted several senior UKIP members to express concern privately, and resulted in public criticism of Nigel Farage from two UKIP MEPs, Jane Collins and William Dartmouth.
95.
Nigel Farage is reported to have had close links with Trump's then chief strategist, Steve Bannon, since at least 2014, when Bannon scheduled meetings for Nigel Farage with right-wing figures in Washington.
96.
In 2017, Nigel Farage was listed as a person of interest by the FBI in their investigation into possible Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election because of his connections to Trump, WikiLeaks and Julian Assange.
97.
Since April 2018 Nigel Farage has been a strong advocate for US President Donald Trump to receive the Nobel Peace Prize on the basis of his attempt to bring better diplomatic relations between North Korea and South Korea as well as better diplomatic relations between North Korea and the United States.
98.
Nigel Farage endorsed Roy Moore in the United States Senate special election in Alabama.
99.
In July 2018 Nigel Farage headlined a fundraiser for Lou Barletta, the Republican nominee in the 2018 United States Senate election in Pennsylvania.
100.
In October 2017 Nigel Farage made controversial remarks during a discussion on LBC radio station after a caller who referred to himself as "Ahmed" told Nigel Farage he thought the pro-Israeli lobby in the United States was equally dangerous to the Russian interference in American politics.
101.
In June 2020, Nigel Farage was exempted by US officials from the country's travel ban under a "national interest" clause, while Trump prepared for his first major election campaign rally since the COVID-19 pandemic.
102.
Nigel Farage appeared in the audiences of rallies in states such as Michigan and Pennsylvania.
103.
In 2021 Nigel Farage undertook a six-week tour of the United States organised by the conservative group FreedomWorks.
104.
Nigel Farage initially endorsed Nicolas Dupont-Aignan of Debout la France, another party of the Alliance for Direct Democracy in Europe, and later supported Marine Le Pen of the National Front, for the second round of the 2017 French presidential election.
105.
Nigel Farage said that the basis for his endorsement of Le Pen was his belief that she would be more sympathetic to the UK following Brexit, in contrast to the pro-European Emmanuel Macron.
106.
Nigel Farage spoke at a rally for the far-right Alternative for Germany party in advance of the 2017 German federal election, having been personally invited by the party's deputy leader Beatrix von Storch.
107.
From taking office as a UKIP MEP in 1999, Nigel Farage has often voiced opposition to the "euro project".
108.
Nigel Farage's argument is that "a one-size-fits-all interest rate" cannot work for countries with structurally different economies, often using the example of Greece and Germany to emphasise contrast.
109.
Nigel Farage believes that tax avoidance is caused by "punitive tax rates", and wants "fairer" taxes as a way to prevent it.
110.
The party's stance was decided by its central policy-making committee, although Nigel Farage expressed a preference for the AV+ system as it "would retain the constituency link and then the second ballot ensured there were no wasted votes".
111.
In 2013 Nigel Farage criticised David Cameron's policy on wind turbines, describing it as covering "Britain in ugly disgusting ghastly windmills".
112.
In 2013 Nigel Farage said that the smoking ban in enclosed public spaces was "silly and illiberal"; he recommended separate smoking areas along the lines of some German states.
113.
Nigel Farage said in 2015 that money which the NHS could have spent on treating taxpayers with serious conditions was instead being spent on recent immigrants with HIV.
114.
Nigel Farage has said that he supports Muslim immigrants who integrate to British society, but is against those who are "coming here to take us over", citing John Howard's Australia as a government to emulate in that regard.
115.
Nigel Farage told a Channel 4 documentary in 2015 that there is a "fifth column" of Islamic extremists in the United Kingdom.
116.
Nigel Farage has said that the "basic principle" of Enoch Powell's 'Rivers of blood' speech was correct: "What he was warning about was the large influx of people into an area, that change an area beyond recognition, there is tension," he said.
117.
Nigel Farage called on the British government in 2013 to accept more refugees from the Syrian Civil War.
118.
Nigel Farage later said that those refugees should be of the country's Christian minority, due to the existence of nearer Muslim-majority safe countries.
119.
Nigel Farage has been highly critical of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying "Nobody should forget that the most devastating direct consequences of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have not been suffered by the likes of Mr Blair, but by the civilian populations of these countries and of course by our own brave service personnel".
120.
Nigel Farage stated that migrant exodus from Libya had been caused by NATO military intervention, approved by David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy, in the civil war in Libya.
121.
Nigel Farage considers rebel forces in Syria to have Islamic extremists among its ranks.
122.
Nigel Farage called French President Emmanuel Macron a "globalist" who wants "many more powers to be centralized in Brussels, powers taken from the member states".
123.
Nigel Farage accused Erdogan's Turkey of "blackmailing" the EU over the European migrant crisis and Turkey's proposed European membership.
124.
In 2014 Nigel Farage said that it was UKIP policy for handguns in the UK to be legalised and licensed, describing the current legislation, brought in after the Dunblane school massacre, as "ludicrous".
125.
Nigel Farage has said that there was no link between responsible handgun ownership and gun crime.
126.
Nigel Farage added that he would not campaign to abolish same-sex marriage.
127.
Nigel Farage believes that people who oppose same-sex marriage, such as Christian and Muslim communities, should be allowed to speak out about their beliefs.
128.
In 2019 Nigel Farage defended Ann Widdecombe, a Brexit Party candidate, for remarks that were perceived to be supportive of gay conversion therapy.
129.
Nigel Farage later defended Widdecombe for these remarks, explaining that "these things are a matter of conscience".
130.
In 2014, Nigel Farage appeared in an online documentary, Bilderberg: The Movie, alongside a number of conspiracy theorists.
131.
In 2019, Nigel Farage described financier George Soros as "the biggest danger to the entire western world" and alleged Soros seeks "to undermine democracy and to fundamentally change the makeup, demographically, of the whole European continent".
132.
Nigel Farage has contested several elections under the UKIP banner and one under the Brexit Party banner:.
133.
Nigel Farage has since provided political analysis for both the main Fox News channel and its sister channel Fox Business Network.
134.
From January 2017 to June 2020 Farage hosted The Nigel Farage Show on the UK talk radio station LBC.
135.
Nigel 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 in March 2019.
136.
On 31 October 2019, the day the UK was set to leave the European Union before the approval of a delay, Nigel Farage interviewed US President Donald Trump on his LBC show.
137.
New episodes of the podcast were released every Friday, but the podcast was cancelled after the American rock music band Rage Against the Machine sent a cease and desist letter to Nigel Farage, demanding that Nigel Farage change the name of the podcast, which he was unwilling to do, prompting LBC to reluctantly trigger its cancellation.
138.
On 11 June 2020, LBC announced that Nigel Farage would be leaving the station "with immediate effect", noting that his contract had been up for renewal.
139.
On 20 June 2021 Nigel Farage joined the British news channel GB News to host the Sunday morning political discussion programme The Political Correction.
140.
Nigel Farage has spoken of how they have been teased because of their relation to him.
141.
Nigel Farage has made reference to his German wife in response to criticisms that he is "anti-Europe", while he himself says he is merely anti-EU.
142.
Nigel Farage has employed his wife Kirsten as his parliamentary secretary and in April 2014 he said that "nobody else could do that job".
143.
In February 2017, his wife told the Press Association that they were living "separate lives" and that Nigel Farage had "moved out of the family home a while ago".
144.
On 25 November 1985, Nigel Farage was hit by a car after a night out, and suffered injury to his head and left leg, the latter nearly requiring amputation.
145.
Nigel Farage was in casts for 11 months but recovered, and the nurse who treated him became his first wife.
146.
On 26 December 1986, Nigel Farage first felt symptoms of what was later discovered to be testicular cancer.
147.
Nigel Farage had the left testicle removed, and the cancer had not spread to any other organs.
148.
Nigel Farage's memoir Fighting Bull was published in 2010.
149.
Nigel Farage is a keen cricket fan and has appeared on Test Match Special.
150.
Nigel Farage appeared in an advertisement for the bookmaker Paddy Power ahead of golf's 2014 Ryder Cup.
151.
Nigel Farage is an association football fan, and supports Crystal Palace FC.
152.
Nigel Farage is a smoker and fond of beer, this forming part of his public image.
153.
Nigel Farage is a member of the East India, Devonshire, Sports and Public Schools' Club, a gentlemen's club situated in St James's Square in London.
154.
In January 2016 Nigel 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.
155.
Nigel Farage reported that he had spoken with the French police but did not wish to pursue the matter any further.
156.
The Times said Nigel Farage's story was untrue, and that Dunkirk prosecutors had no reason to suspect foul play or the police would have started an investigation.
157.
Nigel 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.
158.
In November 2016 Nigel Farage was honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award for his role in the 2016 Brexit referendum at the 33rd Parliamentarian of the Year awards run by political magazine The Spectator.