always presents himself as the rebel, yet part of him wants to be admitted to the club. He has spent his entire life trying to provoke and {give the middle finger} to the establishment – from the schoolmasters at the Dulwich independent school he attended, to Brussels chiefs and the liberal media . . .
Yet he also yearns for to admitted to the Establishment fold. He loves attending Old Alleynian events; reveres decorated service members; and enjoys belonging to the East India Club. It is an affront to his narcissistic self-image that his counsel has never been sought by Whitehall about Donald Trump; that he has never been considered as an ambassador to Washington or for ennoblement.[1]
Farage is comfortable with all classes, at home in a Yorkshire miners’ club as much as a Pall Mall gentleman’s club. Despite accusations of racism frequently levelled at him, he is relaxed among ethnic minorities, and especially older Black people. He’s struck up a special relationship with a Zimbabwean heavyweight boxer and attended several of his fights. Above all, unlike many senior politicians, Farage ‘speaks fluent human.’[2]
Egotism, arrogance, duplicity, dishonesty, hypocrisy – Farage scores highly on all these entries on this catalogue of character defects. However, these attributes are shared by many other senior politicians, not least the former Prime Minister Boris Johnson whose duplicitous decision to campaign for Brexit did more than anything else to deliver the prize on which Farage’s eyes had been for so long fixed on and whose dysfunctional, chaotic and institutionally venal premiership offers a possible window into what a Farage-led administration would look like (plus mass deportations and woke wars). However, in an anti-political era where expressions such as politicians ‘are in it for themselves’, ‘are all the same’ and ‘have been bought’ by what faceless cabal is in vogue, often the WEF, there is the danger that such character traits will .look invisible to Farage’s devotees.
The Pied Piper of Tik Tok
Since setting up a Tik Tok account in 2022, Nigel Farage has accumulated more than 1.2 million followers – more than all other UK parties and politicians. Despite being older than all other major UK party leaders, Farage is considerably more digital savvy than PM Keir Starmer and Conservative Leader Kemi Badenoch whose communications styles are still stuck in analogue mode – focus groups and stilted and formulaic statements with stock phrases such as “working people.” By contrast, Farage is a master the of the punchy, sharp, and succinct one-liner that slices through the noise of social media.[3]
For Farage is just the type of politician who has the skill set to exploit the world of ‘infotainment’ – the dominant communication medium on digital platforms. According to a 2024 survey by Ofcom, 52% of UK adults, with the proportion considerably higher among the younger generation. For 12- to 15-year-olds, Tik Tok is the biggest single news source.[4]
The result is an information ecosystem in which institutional trust has been displaced by devotion to influencers and charismatic showbiz personalities. As the sociologist Paolo Gerbaudo states:
Farage is comfortable with all classes, at home in a Yorkshire miners’ club as much as a Pall Mall gentleman’s club. Despite accusations of racism frequently levelled at him, he is relaxed among ethnic minorities, and especially older Black people. He’s struck up a special relationship with a Zimbabwean heavyweight boxer and attended several of his fights. Above all, unlike many senior politicians, Farage ‘speaks fluent human.’[2]
Egotism, arrogance, duplicity, dishonesty, hypocrisy – Farage scores highly on all these entries on this catalogue of character defects. However, these attributes are shared by many other senior politicians, not least the former Prime Minister Boris Johnson whose duplicitous decision to campaign for Brexit did more than anything else to deliver the prize on which Farage’s eyes had been for so long fixed on and whose dysfunctional, chaotic and institutionally venal premiership offers a possible window into what a Farage-led administration would look like (plus mass deportations and woke wars). However, in an anti-political era where expressions such as politicians ‘are in it for themselves’, ‘are all the same’ and ‘have been bought’ by what faceless cabal is in vogue, often the WEF, there is the danger that such character traits will .look invisible to Farage’s devotees.
The Pied Piper of Tik Tok
Since setting up a Tik Tok account in 2022, Nigel Farage has accumulated more than 1.2 million followers – more than all other UK parties and politicians. Despite being older than all other major UK party leaders, Farage is considerably more digital savvy than PM Keir Starmer and Conservative Leader Kemi Badenoch whose communications styles are still stuck in analogue mode – focus groups and stilted and formulaic statements with stock phrases such as “working people.” By contrast, Farage is a master the of the punchy, sharp, and succinct one-liner that slices through the noise of social media.[3]
For Farage is just the type of politician who has the skill set to exploit the world of ‘infotainment’ – the dominant communication medium on digital platforms. According to a 2024 survey by Ofcom, 52% of UK adults, with the proportion considerably higher among the younger generation. For 12- to 15-year-olds, Tik Tok is the biggest single news source.[4]
The result is an information ecosystem in which institutional trust has been displaced by devotion to influencers and charismatic showbiz personalities. As the sociologist Paolo Gerbaudo states:
the social media age has heralded the return of personalised and charismatic leadership that is ideally suited to navigating a personality-obsessed digital culture.
In Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Showbusiness, another social theorist Neil Postman decried the trivial ‘infotainment’ landscape colonising America leading to a somatised culture in which Americans:
do not argue with propositions; they argue with good looks, celebrities, and commercials. Postman foresaw that politicians would increasingly be unable to aspire to and make high office unless they entertained us.[5]
Digital media has arguably speeded up his dystopian vision.
Podcasts are another source of displacement from legacy news outlets and broadcasting institutions such as the BBC. There are many good and informative podcasts, but they frequently represent the shift toward ‘good vibes,’ entertainment over searching, investigative journalism. For example, Trump’s cosy chat on the Joe Rogan shoe in the run up to last year’s Presidential Election racked up 45 million views; in contrast to the nearly eight million who viewed his opponent Kamala Harris’ interview with Fox News. Consequently, in the big name interviews that podcaster hosts, the interviewees tend to be given an easy ride.[6]
This media landscape in which intellectuals are being displaced by influencers and in which politicians are dislodged by confidence tricksters is meat and drink to populist politicians such as Nigel Farage because it enables them to short cut the channels of traditional institutions to the electors and communicate directly with them. An analysis of the £571, 585 raked in last year by “Nine Jobs Nigel” shows that as a TV Presenter on the Alt-Right news network GB News he earned £219, 506; as an influencer on You Tube £11,117, on Facebook/Meta £2,795 and on X £5,482[7] Not that he was ever starved of the oxygen of publicity on the “mainstream media”; by February 2024 Farage had made an incredible 38 appearances on the BBC’s flagship current affairs programme Question Time since his debut in 2000; with only the late former Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy having made more. [8]Throughout this near quarter century, none of his political enterprises (UKIP, Brexit Party and Reform UK) had any Westminster MPs.
It is the symbiosis between social media and the growing cynicism towards governing institutions and legacy media organisations that has created the oceans in which the grifting populist sharks swim. A 2023 survey published by the Office for National Statistics found that only a quarter of people in the UK have trust in government, and only 12% have faith in political parties. Just 36% claim to trust UK news providers, according to the Reuters Institute and Oxford University findings. Last year, the British Social Attitudes Survey reported that trust and confidence in Britain’s system of governance is at a long-term low.[9]
The reasons for this near collapse in trust and belief in established institutions are many and various; from the parliamentary expenses scandal in 2009; the going to war in Iraq on highly dubious premises; the Brexit conflicts; the handling of the Covid pandemic and the revelations of the Post Office/Horizon and Infected Blood scandals, However the emergence of media entrepreneurs with vested interests in delegitimizing the mainstream so that, in the words of the philosopher Anna Bonalume in her essay on Italy’s strongman leader Matteo Salvini titled ‘A Month with a Populist”, the putative rescuer of the people can fulfil the their “promise” that “I am one of you, you can become what I am” – the very essence of populism.[10] And from the vantage of his various bully pulpits, Farage can make this promise.
Farage Goes AWOLGT
And it is from these media bully pulpits, that Farage speaks to his faithful and articulates his vision for a Britain transformed rather than from the forum where he has the mandate and civic responsibility to do so. He has voted about 95 times over the course of the year out of about 250 divisions – a similar record to Kemi Badenoch, the Tory Party leader, but less than the Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, or the Green Party co-leaders Adrian Ramsay and Carla Denyer (who had one of the highest voting records at 209). According to data compiled by the anti-extremist campaign group Hope Not Hate, Farage has spoken less often in parliament than other comparable party leaders – 45 times against 226 for Badenoch (who has more opportunities as Leader of the Opposition), 97 for Davey and 182 and 86 respectively for Denyer and Ramsay). Farage justifies his record of absenteeism by saying that:
Podcasts are another source of displacement from legacy news outlets and broadcasting institutions such as the BBC. There are many good and informative podcasts, but they frequently represent the shift toward ‘good vibes,’ entertainment over searching, investigative journalism. For example, Trump’s cosy chat on the Joe Rogan shoe in the run up to last year’s Presidential Election racked up 45 million views; in contrast to the nearly eight million who viewed his opponent Kamala Harris’ interview with Fox News. Consequently, in the big name interviews that podcaster hosts, the interviewees tend to be given an easy ride.[6]
This media landscape in which intellectuals are being displaced by influencers and in which politicians are dislodged by confidence tricksters is meat and drink to populist politicians such as Nigel Farage because it enables them to short cut the channels of traditional institutions to the electors and communicate directly with them. An analysis of the £571, 585 raked in last year by “Nine Jobs Nigel” shows that as a TV Presenter on the Alt-Right news network GB News he earned £219, 506; as an influencer on You Tube £11,117, on Facebook/Meta £2,795 and on X £5,482[7] Not that he was ever starved of the oxygen of publicity on the “mainstream media”; by February 2024 Farage had made an incredible 38 appearances on the BBC’s flagship current affairs programme Question Time since his debut in 2000; with only the late former Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy having made more. [8]Throughout this near quarter century, none of his political enterprises (UKIP, Brexit Party and Reform UK) had any Westminster MPs.
It is the symbiosis between social media and the growing cynicism towards governing institutions and legacy media organisations that has created the oceans in which the grifting populist sharks swim. A 2023 survey published by the Office for National Statistics found that only a quarter of people in the UK have trust in government, and only 12% have faith in political parties. Just 36% claim to trust UK news providers, according to the Reuters Institute and Oxford University findings. Last year, the British Social Attitudes Survey reported that trust and confidence in Britain’s system of governance is at a long-term low.[9]
The reasons for this near collapse in trust and belief in established institutions are many and various; from the parliamentary expenses scandal in 2009; the going to war in Iraq on highly dubious premises; the Brexit conflicts; the handling of the Covid pandemic and the revelations of the Post Office/Horizon and Infected Blood scandals, However the emergence of media entrepreneurs with vested interests in delegitimizing the mainstream so that, in the words of the philosopher Anna Bonalume in her essay on Italy’s strongman leader Matteo Salvini titled ‘A Month with a Populist”, the putative rescuer of the people can fulfil the their “promise” that “I am one of you, you can become what I am” – the very essence of populism.[10] And from the vantage of his various bully pulpits, Farage can make this promise.
Farage Goes AWOLGT
And it is from these media bully pulpits, that Farage speaks to his faithful and articulates his vision for a Britain transformed rather than from the forum where he has the mandate and civic responsibility to do so. He has voted about 95 times over the course of the year out of about 250 divisions – a similar record to Kemi Badenoch, the Tory Party leader, but less than the Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, or the Green Party co-leaders Adrian Ramsay and Carla Denyer (who had one of the highest voting records at 209). According to data compiled by the anti-extremist campaign group Hope Not Hate, Farage has spoken less often in parliament than other comparable party leaders – 45 times against 226 for Badenoch (who has more opportunities as Leader of the Opposition), 97 for Davey and 182 and 86 respectively for Denyer and Ramsay). Farage justifies his record of absenteeism by saying that:
We are stuck in a very funny parliament. Occasionally you’ll get a vote like on assisted dying. Everything else the government wins by 180 to 200.[11]
While serving as a Member of the European Parliament, Farage was a member of its influential fisheries committee (recall the iconic role of the plight of British fishing communities in Leave campaigning and Farage’s boat trip up the Thames to highlight it when he was involved in a contretemps with prominent Remain figures such as Bob Geldof) but only turned up to one of 42 meetings. So, his serial abstentionism goes before him.
For a self-professed man of the people; he has been rather invisible to the people that he purports to serve and represent i.e. the residents and electors of Clacton-on-Sea. Yes, he does many Friday evening events to garner never to be missed publicity. But he does not hold surgeries allegedly for safety reasons although he has had to row back on a claim this was on the advice of parliamentary advisers. He has not turned up to the Clacton town board despite being invited.[12]
The Clacton constituency is known for its levels of deprivation and social exclusion despite taking in genteel towns like Frinton-on-Sea. In a feature for the Mirror newspaper to make the first anniversary of Farage’s election as their MP, Ros Wynne-Jones canvassed the views and experiences of his constituents. She reported on the case of Carla, a social care support worker fleeing a violently abusive partner who emailed him on several occasions to no avail. After being in several temporary homes for victims of domestic violence, including one where she shared a room with her ten-year-old daughter and 14-year-old son, she eventually found a permanent home after turning to the local Labour Party for help. At Jaywick, a virtual shanty town that is the third most deprived local authority district in England, Farage never visited the scene of a fire that occurred on 8th August 2024 and which destroyed three houses. In contrast, the local community successfully to pushed to set up refuges for those made homeless by the blaze. A request to Farage to address the lack of lifebelt cover on Jaywick beach also went unanswered. Rachel, who runs a school wear shop, complains that he does not engage with her on local business. As a mother of a child with additional needs, she is also unimpressed by Farage’s claims that GPs are over diagnosing mental health conditions and special educational needs. [13]
These vignettes provide convincing evidence of Farage’s utterly cynical attitude to res publica and to any human relationships. But they carry hope that adequate community organising, and ethos can offer an antidote to the snake oil and fear mongering populism offered by Reform UK. For Reform feed off the despair and lack of hope that blights depressed coastal towns such as Clacton, Great Yarmouth, and Skegness, all of whom returned Reform MPs in the General election of 2024 and which previously voted Leave by over 70% in the EU referendum of 2016.
The biggest challenge to Reform UK comes from the ideological split over economics within its ranks between Thatcherite deregulatory individualism and populist redistributionism; a spit which mirrors that at the top of the MAGA movement in the USA between the radical libertarianism of the departed Elon Musk and the protectionist utopianism of Donald Trump. At heart Farage is Thatcherite in his basic instincts; he is a tax cutter and would prefer to replace the NHS with a social insurance system but to appeal to its blue collar, working class base he has to come up with attractive retail offers. It is in this context that Farage’s call for the restoration of the two-child benefit cap - something which the Labour government up until its recent U-turn had set itself against - must be understood. Make no mistake, this would be a positive development which lift around 500,000 children above the poverty line and its introduction by George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government 2010-15, was widely condemned as one of its most cruel welfare reforms. However, it needs to be seen alongside the other major Reform welfare proposal – the introduction of a major tax break for married couples, which would particularly benefit single-earner households, typically with one parent staying at home to raise children.[14]
Taken together, these two policies represent at least a tentative adoption of pronatalism or nativism – at its most basic, the idea that the state should encourage the “native” population to have more children. Framing low birth rates as a problem for society is not in itself dubious; it is when it is fused with opposition to abortion, immigration, or the racist agenda of the Great Replacement Theory. Although Farage has yet to explicitly endorse nativism and/or pronatalism, the direction of travel towards “family support schemes” of Orban, Meloni or Putin provenance cannot be ruled out. The warning lights are flashing.
References
[1] Michael Crick, 2022, One Party After Another. The Disruptive Life of Nigel Farage. London: Simon and Schuster p.550
[2] Ibid, p.549
[3] Jams Bloodworth, In These TikTok Times, Nigel Farage Knows Personality Trumps Trust. Byline Times. June 2025 pp.32-34
[4] Ibid
[5] Ibid
[6] Ibid
[7] Basit Mahmoud, Left Foot Forward. 13 January 2025
[8] Jack Peat, The London Economic. 12 February 2024
[9] Bloodworth, p.34
[10] Ibid
[11] Rowena Mason. 'Reform UK. Top of the polls, £1m pay, trips abroad - a good year for Farage,' The Guardian. 7th July 2025 p.10
[12] Ibid
[13] Ros Wynne Jones ‘I needed help from my local MP, but it’s Nigel Farage and he’s nowhere to be seen. The Mirror 4th July 2025
[14] James Ball The ugly truth about Farage’s baby boom. The New World. Issue 439 12th June 2025 pp14-15
⏩Barry Gilheany is a freelance writer, qualified counsellor and aspirant artist resident in Colchester where he took his PhD at the University of Essex. He is also a lifelong Leeds United supporter.
