The last time that Nigel Farage visited a lap-dancing club was “during the
last French presidential election campaign, with one of the candidates”.
When he told us this we were not sure, for a moment, whether he was joking.
It turned out that he was not, it was just a typically candid and recklessly
off-message remark, which may not do much for Anglo-French relations either.
But, like the UK Independence Party that Mr Farage leads, it can be quite
hard to tell whether he is serious or not.
This is the question that mainstream British politicians — David Cameron in
particular — have to answer too. Is Mr Farage the threat to Mr Cameron that
he would have us believe, or is he just a leader made to look good by a
rag-tag bunch of eccentrics? Is UKIP finished now that the Europe issue has
faded, or is the bland sameyness of what now passes for national debate
among the main political parties its greatest opportunity?
Certainly, UKIP recently picked up two Conservative-minded peers, but it still
has a talent for squandering its success. The 12 MEPs whom it won largely as
a result of a publicity boost from the neon-skinned daytime TV host Robert
Kilroy-Silk have dwindled to nine: Mr Kilroy-Silk split from the party
acrimoniously (two others went under a cloud). The party is also facing a
court battle with the Electoral Commission that could easily bankrupt it.
Mr Farage’s reaction to all this? He is never happier than when casting
himself and his party as the plucky David to the state (and status quo)
Goliath.
“I think you can’t put a cigarette paper between Labour and the Conservatives
on most of the big issues,” he said. “So the Tories are obsessively worried
about us because of this drift towards us. They think we could cost them the
next election.”
If Mr Farage hopes to appeal to disillusioned Tories, he makes a good decoy
duck. He was a Tory, briefly, when he was a stockbroker in the early 1980s,
having decided to “go out and make money”, and anyone nostalgic for that era
will find their man here. He has the kind of flash charisma often found on
the right: a rogue’s charm, an impeccable suit, a trilby hat over a fierce
side-parting and the almost obligatory minor sex scandal to boot. But more
of the hanky spanky with Liga the 25-year-old Latvian later.
This, along with an admiration for Baroness Thatcher’s legacy, makes him
attractive to the kind of people that we used to think of as typical
Conservatives: even stalwarts such as the free-market economist Tim Congdon,
or activists such as William Hague’s former constituency chairman, have
defected. He claims, a little improbably, that some members of the
Conservative front bench, in the Commons as well as the Lords, have confided
to him that they actually voted UKIP at the European elections.
“There is this split within the parliamentary party, but the real split — and
this is what they are terrified of and they damn well should be terrified of
— the real split is between the official party position and what their own
membership think.
“And this is very interesting. The Tory branches, the local council
candidates, the real workers in the party — impossible to give you a
percentage, but if I said to you that 80 per cent of them would agree with
UKIP I don’t think I’d be far wrong. This is a real problem for them.”
The election of David Cameron, who dismissed UKIP members as “fruitcakes,
loonies and closet racists”, has left the field clear for Mr Farage on the
Right (well, for him and the British National Party). Unsurprisingly, he has
strong views on the Conservative leader.
“I liked him because he’s a smoker, you see, which is a very good thing,” Mr
Farage said first. (This may have given Mr Cameron added incentive to give
up). “He’s a very likeable bloke. Pleasant. But he doesn’t actually believe
in anything. I don’t think he believes in anything. Is he in politics
because he’s got some great driving, burning ambition, because he believes
in something? No, of course he doesn’t. It’s about rank and becoming prime
minister. Which if we were an independent country would matter enormously.”
The Tory high command is so afraid of him, Mr Farage insists, that there is “a
very concerted attempt to have a go at us. It hasn't happened before, that’s
the point. The tactic before with UKIP — from the Conservatives particularly
— was just to ignore them.”
He thinks that Conservative Central Office is targeting him, and cites an
effort by Tory MPs around the country recently to publicise the case of a
man who claimed that he had been dumped as a UKIP candidate for a winnable
local election seat when the party found out that he was disabled. “They’ve
decided to turn very nasty.”
This doesn’t sound more than normal political battle tactics, we suggested.
“Well to me, perhaps I’m naive, but to me the disabled thing was pretty
nasty . . . Maybe this is part of the growing-up process for us. It’s an
unusual time now. Maybe this is part of us having to grow up and that it is
difficult going.”
He insisted that the story “simply isn’t true”, yet ten days ago Mr Farage was
quoted as saying: “He could not be a mainline candidate if he physically
could not do the job. I could run down the street but I couldn’t make an
Olympic athlete.”
For a man with the appearance of plain-speaking it can be quite hard to get to
the bottom of things. (Reminding us, for instance, of Liga the Latvian. But
more of that, as we said, later).
Mr Farage has been highly effective in Strasbourg, blowing the whistle on
several cases of corruption that became Europe-wide scandals. But now the
threat of the euro or the EU constitution lies dormant, he has riskily
decided to focus more on domestic politics, where UKIP has long fared badly.
His political inspiration is from Thatcher — not, he insists, the Tories.
“Thatcher was not an old-fashioned Tory — she was an aberration. I think the
more I read about the history of the Tory party or politics, you realise
that Thatcher actually wasn’t Conservative at all, she was a radical
economic liberal.”
And that is how he would describe himself: “Absolutely. I don’t think I’m a
Conservative at all.”
A work in progress, their manifesto so far includes the “unashamed” return of
grammar schools, less progressive taxes, and strict border controls to stem
the tide of Eastern Europeans.
“Let’s have a work-permit system. Absolutely fine. Got no problem with that.
But not complete open rights of settlement, plus your extended family if you
wish. I mean I know this is an area that a lot of people don’t like talking
about. But I think we are right on this.”
He said that, since he took over six months ago, he had purged his unruly
party of anyone veering towards the BNP or any kind of racist agenda,
leaving it politically united, “and if we’ve got one or two eccentrics who
wear hats, I mean so what?”.
More immediately, he faces the prospect of going bankrupt: the Electoral
Commission is taking UKIP to court over its refusal to pay to the Treasury
£367,697 received from Alan Bown, a British bookmaker, because he wasn’t
technically on the electoral register at the time.
Mr Farage can hardly wait: “I’m looking forward to it. I think the contrast of
the State, the bureaucrats, the weasels, on the one hand and honest Alan on
the other is going to be wonderful. And I do actually think that we still
have a great sense in this country of fair play, of giving the underdog a
chance. And this is clearly some form of victimisation.”
The members of the Electoral Commission (does it remind him of the European
Commission?) are “the most utterly useless group of people: just appalling
people, disgraceful people, horrid people”. They had let the Liberal
Democrats keep £2.4 million from a man based abroad who was now in prison,
they were silent on Labour’s cash-for-honours affair, but he said that they
had thrown the book at UKIP over what was a small administrative error.
Politics is personal for Mr Farage. If Mr Cameron has to have a wind turbine
on his roof and bicycle outside his front door, Mr Farage indulges as many
vices as he can as an “Up yours, Delors” to the po-faced rule-makers (their
quirks, like EU-banned bendy bananas, ironed out).
“I like a pint after work,” is the way he puts it, but as anyone who knows him
will tell you, that is putting it mildly. He briefly gave up smoking, “but
when the Government announced the ban, of course, I started again” (he is
not entirely joking). He is as candid about his transgressions as a
mainstream politician would be paranoid and secretive.
Well, not quite candid perhaps. For there was this Latvian woman called Liga
who kissed and told on Mr Farage to the News of the World a year
ago. As the newspaper described the alleged event, his “European UNION” was
a marathon night during which he “begged her to get MaaSTRICHT with him”.
For the first time, Mr Farage looked a little embarrassed. “Okay I’ve got to
defend myself on that . . . That particular situation happened because I had
too much to drink. Just as simple as that. Not clever.”
And, as he had insisted to the News of the World and his wife, he had
fallen asleep at her house and she had invented all the rest?
“Unbelievable,” he agreed. Mmm.
He squirmed, but to his credit he remained polite, despite our unfair
intrusiveness — and he still managed a bit of humour. Where was she now, we
asked. Had she gone back to Latvia? “No,” he said with a rueful laugh,
“because they can all come and live here now, can’t they?”
But if Mr Cameron were to talk cheerfully about visits to lap-dancing clubs in
his past he would not survive in politics. “Perhaps I won’t. I don’t know.
Maybe we’re living in such an incredibly, ludicrously, politically correct
world that perhaps we all have to visit with that sort of standard package.
I hope not.”
Whether Mr Farage is individual or narcissist, visionary or idiot, the
Conservative Party must hope that he does not turn out to be a dangerous
joke.
The road that led to tanks on David Cameron’s lawn
Born April 3, 1964
Education Dulwich College
Family: Second wife is German. He has four children, aged 1 to 18
Previous career: commodity broker, ran own brokerage business from
early 1990s to 2002
Political career: left Tories when John Major signed Maastricht Treaty.
Founding member of UKIP in 1993
1999: Elected as MEP
2004: Reelected as MEP for SouthEast England, became leader of the
UKIP’s group in Brussels
2005: Clashed with Tony Blair when the Prime Minister gave his last
address of British Presidency to European Parliament
2006: Parked an armoured personnel carrier outside the Conservative
Party’s spring conference, to signify the party was “parking its tank” on
David Cameron’s lawn. Won the UKIP leadership election
Hobbies: keen sea angler and shot, and a supporter of Real Ale. Visits
First World War battlefields
