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Telegraph
a day ago
- Business
- Telegraph
Farage: I get up early to work — Reform voters are people with alarm clocks
Nigel Farage spent part of his Monday standing in a brick factory in a high-vis jacket on the outskirts of Glasgow. It is not a scene anyone – including Mr Farage – would have expected a year ago. Taking retirement in March 2021 after Boris Johnson's EU trade deal was signed, the veteran Eurosceptic told The Telegraph at the time: 'I've knocked on my last door.' The stunts, interviews and campaigns were over. But now they are back – and Reform UK is doing better than ever. A year to the day since he re-entered British politics with a bang, taking the helm of his insurgent Right-wing party and fighting a successful four and a half-week campaign to become an MP, Mr Farage is on the trail once again. 'I knew it would be the last big decision of my life,' he says, reflecting on the last 365 days, which have seen Reform win its first MPs at a general election and take control of 10 English councils. He also fulfilled his lifelong ambition of sitting in the Commons. At 61, Mr Farage has spent the last quarter of a century in the headlines, first as a member of the European Parliament and then as leader of Ukip, the Brexit Party and Reform. He has announced his retirement from politics twice – after the Brexit referendum in 2016, and again in 2021. Both times, he has been tempted back for more. 'I could be lecturing at American universities, I could be making a fortune,' he says. 'So it had to be worthwhile.' His latest reincarnation is as the MP for Clacton and running Reform, the party with the most momentum in British politics. It is polling at 31 per cent of the vote – far higher than Ukip ever managed – and Mr Farage is busier than ever. 'Are there days when I think, 'God, what am I doing?'' he asks himself after a day on the campaign trail in Scotland. 'The workload is tough, but then you get days like today, which you certainly couldn't call boring.' He says his 'remarkable stamina and energy' began in his youth, when he was not a sprinter but 'always a distance sort of person… never needed to sleep much'. Throughout the day, Mr Farage refers constantly to the importance of getting up early. At the factory, he tells the owner that, as a young commodities trader, he would be at his desk by 7am and either stay there until 7pm or be in the pub by lunchtime. 'I started work at 4 o'clock yesterday morning,' he says later. 'Just spent hours going through my messages.' Reform voters, he says, are 'people who have got alarms, or have had alarms'. His day on Monday involved four visits across Scotland, including a press conference, the visit to the factory, a 20-minute check-in with a local campaign office, and a pint of Tennent's Lager on the outskirts of Glasgow. A walk along the high street in Larkhall, where a crunch Scottish Parliament by-election will take place on Thursday, yielded several political chats with passers-by ('They [the SNP] haven't got a bloody clue') and some grocery shopping ('Under-ripe bananas?! I like them almost black.') Mr Farage admits the frantic pace of his campaigning (and, perhaps, his refusal to retire) is partly an acceptance of his own mortality. The Reform leader has had a remarkable number of close escapes, having survived being hit by a car, a testicular cancer diagnosis that was initially ignored by the NHS, a wheel coming off his car on a French motorway and a plane crash. 'The idea of a morning lie in is horrible, absolutely horrible,' he says. 'I want to do stuff, I want to pack as much as I can in. I think maybe that is a result of the accidents I had, the brushes I have had [with death]. 'We're not here forever, and I want to do as much as I can in the time that I have.' The latest challenge is turning Reform, which ran a motley crew of candidates at last year's election and has since descended into a bitter row with one of its former MPs, into a credible party of government. The five turquoise MPs in Parliament are barely enough for a dinner party – let alone close to forming a full shadow cabinet. Mr Farage plans to rectify that by appointing some high-profile spokespeople for various policy issues, drawn from outside Westminster, to serve as prospective Cabinet ministers under a Reform government. He is tight-lipped about who the new recruits will be, but hints that they will probably come from business backgrounds. Unlike Ukip and the Brexit Party, Reform is not a single-issue campaign group but an attempt to 'challenge the existing parties on a very broad range of issues', he says. Mr Farage describes making an impact as a 'game of chess' with the major parties, which he hopes to win by shattering political consensus on voter-friendly topics. The top priorities are mass migration – which he describes as an 'absolute scandal' – and net zero, which is 'so farcical it's almost funny'. At his press conference in Aberdeen on Monday, Mr Farage told the Scottish media that net zero has become 'the new Brexit'. Later, he tells The Telegraph that the similarity between the issues is that there is 'total disconnect' between the 'political classes, most of the mainstream media, business, the unions' and the public. 'I think my strength is that people say, 'You know what, whether we agree with him or not, at least we know what he stands for. He makes it pretty clear that he believes in what he's doing',' he adds. 'I think that has helped a lot over the last year.' Reform has pledged to scrap the commitment to reach net zero by 2050 entirely, which Mr Farage claimed last week would save £40 billion a year. That money would be used for tax cuts, including for married couples – a policy he hopes would boost the birth rate. The figure was immediately disputed by economists and both Labour and the Conservatives, who accused Mr Farage of 'fantasy economics'. So, with Reform hoping to pitch seriously for Downing Street in four years' time, does the party have a numbers problem? 'With the big numbers out there, the cost of climate change, the cost of DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion], at least it's starting a debate,' he replies. 'If we have to revise those numbers a bit, we'll revise them. Any numbers you produce in politics will be questioned.' So far, the strategy appears to be working. Reform has a credible chance of beating Labour in Thursday's Scottish Parliament by-election in Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse, although Mr Farage says it is unlikely his party can unseat the SNP. But active campaigning in Scotland is a recent strategy for Reform, having only fielded paper candidates at last year's election. Many still beat the Conservatives, who were routed both north and south of the border. Now it has almost 11,000 members in Scotland, which may make it the second-largest party by membership behind the SNP (the Conservatives and Labour are both cagey about revealing their figures). The 'hotbed' of Reform Scotland support is around the central belt of constituencies between Edinburgh and Glasgow, rather than in the less well-connected areas like the rural north of England, where Mr Farage's political projects have usually thrived. Nationally, there is also growing support among women – who now make up half of prospective Reform voters – and ethnic minorities. Mr Farage says the party's staff 'try not to look at' demographic data, not believing that it should matter, but points out there is 'a lot of warmth' from some black voters, especially those from Caribbean countries, and 'elements of the Asian community'. The other major growth area is among young people, of whom around 10 per cent would vote for Reform if an election was held tomorrow. Mr Farage ascribes much of that success to TikTok, on which he has become an unlikely star despite not downloading the app to his own phone over security concerns. His return to politics was marked with a social media video overlaid with Eminem's Without Me – 'Guess who's back? Back again.' 😎😎😎 — Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) June 3, 2024 Walking through Heathrow Airport recently, he says he was accosted by a young fan, who pointed out to his father: 'Dad, it's the Brexit means Brexit guy!' Dozens of accounts have posted Mr Farage's 2010 speech in the European Parliament, in which he called Herman Van Rompuy a man with the 'charisma of a damp rag and the appearance of a low-grade bank clerk'. With a grin, he admits he would be 'shut down immediately' by Sir Lindsay Hoyle if he tried such a stunt in Westminster. As the campaign moves relentlessly across the UK, next month Mr Farage will travel to Wales, where constituency-level polling shows Reform's support is high ahead of the Welsh Senedd elections next year. 'I think there is a very widespread belief that Britain is broken,' Mr Farage says. 'There's the paradox of our support, in that our supporters are the most pessimistic about the state our country is in, and yet the most optimistic that we are going to solve it.' The next four years present an interesting challenge for Mr Farage, who has always campaigned as an underdog, not a front-runner. But a pitch for No 10 is a different game to the anti-establishment, pro-Britain politics that have underpinned his last 25 years in Brussels and Westminster. Shifting gears to a plausible general election campaign has required a new way of thinking about politics, and the Reform leader has come to see it not as a political party but as a business venture. The press conferences, by-elections and endless media coverage are something like seed capital, while the promises of billions in savings under a Reform government are pitched as an opening figure from which to enter into a negotiation with the public. Candidates – many of whom Mr Farage admits were 'bad' last year – are Reform's workforce, and he is the executive who returned from retirement for one last deal. 'At 60 years old, having just won news presenter of the year [on GB News], with a couple of grandkids on the way, I wasn't going to come back to this for the sake of it,' he says. So why risk it all again? The trademark grin returns. 'I could see the gap in the market was enormous. Absolutely enormous.'
The National
26-05-2025
- Politics
- The National
Protesters poised to target Nigel Farage's visit to Scotland
The Reform UK leader is planning to hit the campaign trail in the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election next week – but will be given an 'anti-racist welcome' by campaigners. A group chat has been created to coordinate the protest, given that the exact date and location for his visit is not yet known. The chat, which was set up by Stand Up to Racism and has 11 members, features the following description: 'Nigel Farage is claiming that he intends to come up to Scotland to campaign in the upcoming Hamilton, Larkhill [sic] and Stonehouse MSP by-election despite last year telling us that coming to Scotland was 'unsafe' for him. READ MORE: Stand-off breaks out between pro-trans activists and police 'Let's use this group to make sure that once we know when and where Farage plans to come and visit, we're able to arrange the sort of anti-racist welcome he deserves!' Farage's visit will be his first north of the Border since he attended a campaign event for the Brexit Party in 2019. His visit to Edinburgh in 2013 descended into chaos after the former Ukip leader had to take refuge in a pub in the Royal Mile after he was protested by independence supporters. The Reform MP had to be rescued by police in a riot van. Other campaign visits have posed difficulties for Farage. In last year's election campaign, OnlyFans model Victoria Thomas Bowen threw a milkshake over his head as he left a Wetherspoon pub in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex. Farage would go on to win the seat while Thomas Bowen was later handed a £600 fine and a 120 community service order but dodged jail. He also had a milkshake thrown at him during a campaign visit to Newcastle upon Tyne in May 2019. READ MORE: UK government 'insisted' on intervening in Gaza genocide row at Scottish university Police had asked a McDonald's in Edinburgh not to sell milkshakes when Farage was in the city that year, which prompted Burger King to tweet: 'Dear people of Scotland. We're selling milkshakes all weekend.' The fast food chain was rapped by the Advertising Standards Authority for the post, which the organisation said was 'irresponsible'. The Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election is seen as a three-way race between the SNP, who are defending the seat after the death of incumbent Christina McKelvie, Scottish Labour and Reform UK. Reform UK were approached for comment.
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Patrick O'Flynn, Westminster journalist turned leading Eurosceptic and Ukip MEP
Patrick O'Flynn, who has died of cancer aged 59, was a Eurosceptic journalist-turned-politician who became one of 24 Ukip MEPs elected to the European Parliament in 2014; he left the party in 2018, at about the same time as its former leader Nigel Farage, in protest at its appointment of Tommy Robinson, leader of the far-Right English Defence League, as an adviser on rape gangs and prison reform. While Farage went on to co-found the Brexit Party (now Reform UK), O'Flynn joined the Social Democratic Party (SDP), which, surprisingly, traces its origin to the party formed in 1981 by the so-called 'Gang of Four' (Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams) who split from the Labour Party principally because they considered the party too anti-EU. In the 1990s, however the SDP took a Eurosceptic turn and it campaigned for Brexit in 2016. In 2019 O'Flynn stood as SDP candidate in the Peterborough by-election, held following the removal of the Labour MP Fiona Onasanya after her conviction for perverting the course of justice. But as the Brexit Party was also fielding a candidate and was the bookies' favourite to win (it came second to Labour), O'Flynn polled just 135 votes and lost his deposit. Patrick James O'Flynn was born on August 29 1965. After graduating in economics from King's College, Cambridge, he took a diploma in journalism from City, University of London. After stints with the Birmingham Post and Sunday Express, he joined the Daily Express as a lobby correspondent, rising to chief political commentator and later political editor and chief comment editor. He also wrote extensively for The Spectator and, later, The Daily Telegraph. In 2019 he recalled that when he first launched the Express campaign to take Britain out of the EU it was 'much to the bemusement of Lobby colleagues and the vast majority of MPs'. But he played a crucial role in the political bandwagon that culminated in the Yes vote of 2016. By then, O'Flynn had joined Nigel Farage's Ukip as director of communications, before being elected an MEP for the East of England in the 2014 European elections. He became the party's spokesman on the economy and its campaign director in the 2015 general election, in which he stood, unsuccessfully, in Cambridge. But tensions at the heart of the party became apparent a few days after the poll when, in an interview with The Times, O'Flynn described Farage as a 'snarling, thin-skinned, aggressive' man who was turning the party into a personality cult, and called for a more consensual style of leadership to avoid the appearance of 'absolute monarchy'. O'Flynn was the running-mate for Lisa Duffy in the Ukip leadership election of 2016, but amid growing disenchantment he resigned from the party front bench in 2017. His unhappiness intensified after the April 2018 election of Gerard Batten as party leader. When he defected to the SDP in November that year, he explained that he had tried in vain to dissuade Ukip's leadership from its 'apparent and growing fixation' with Tommy Robinson. 'The key question in British politics now is which party are millions of sensible, moderate Brexit voters betrayed by establishment parties but wishing no tie-up with Tommy Robinson supposed to vote for?' he asked. 'The answer, alas, is clearly not Ukip.' Under Batten, he added, Ukip had become 'an impediment to the Brexit campaigning that I have energetically pursued for many years. So, like many on the communitarian wing of the party, I have decided to join the resurgent SDP, which campaigned for Brexit during the referendum and espouses broad and moderate pro-nation state political values that I – and I believe many of our voters from 2014 – will be delighted to endorse.' Patrick O'Flynn is survived by his wife, Carole Ann, also a Daily Express writer, and their son and daughter. Patrick O'Flynn, born August 29 1965, death announced May 20 2025 Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
The National
20-05-2025
- Business
- The National
BBC under fire after hiding Reform UK politician's affiliations
June Mummery, who was briefly a Brexit Party MEP before the UK left the EU and stood for Nigel Farage's rebranded party in the 2024 General Election, was presented by the BBC as a only concerned business owner. The moment came during a broadcast of BBC Breakfast on Tuesday, in which the broadcaster looked at reaction to the UK-EU deal which was announced the previous day – and criticised by the fishing industry for extending the current arrangement with the EU by 12 years until 2038. READ MORE: Labour's Brexit reset is 'horror show for Scottish fishermen', industry says Reporting from the port of Brixham in Devon, the BBC said that they had been unable to find anyone willing to come in front of the camera to talk about the impact of the deal. Instead, they introduced a spokesperson from 'one business in Lowestoft in Suffolk' – the constituency where Mummery stood for Reform UK in 2024. Mummery then came on screen, with the banner naming her company – BFP Fish Auctioneers – but her political affiliation was not revealed. June Mummery was platformed on the BBC without her links to Reform UK and the Brexit Party being made public (Image: BBC) She then said: 'I'm absolutely disgusted from what I've heard. 'When I heard that Keir Starmer was thinking of taking us back in for another four years, I mean, that is awful, but to hear 12, where's this 12 years come from? 'Brexit was a golden opportunity to take back full control of our ocean, our waters, create thousands of jobs for coastal communities, and that man has just stolen all our aspirations.' Mummery was recognised by users on the social media platform BlueSky, who criticised the broadcaster for failing to disclose her political background. According to a publicly available draft of the BBC's Editorial Guidelines, from 2024, the broadcaster should make clear such a contributor's affiliations. READ MORE: Scotland 'absorbed into England' by Acts of Union, says top legal expert The guidance states: 'It should not be assumed that contributors to BBC output are unbiased or impartial … it may be necessary, when relevant, to give appropriate information about affiliations, funding or particular viewpoints.' It adds: 'The key test is to consider whether the audience would be misled if such information was not made available. 'It may also be necessary to consider whether such affiliations might risk undermining trust in the contributor's professional credentials or in the perceived authenticity of their experiences.' According to Reform UK's website, Mummery was their fisheries spokesperson before the 2024 General Election. Nigel Farage's Reform are currently sitting at the top of UK-wide pollsJournalist James Stewart said: 'This is such a basic fail of good journalism. 'There's a massive opp[ortunity] for the BBC to claim the role of trusted source among partial media and AI slop, yet News keeps doing shit like this.' A second user added: 'It looks very much like the BBC Breakfast team either failed to Google 'June Mummery' during the process of agreeing to have her on, or have obscured her Reform UK role.' Journalist Ian Fraser said: 'BBC News being less than transparent about Reform UK's fisheries spokeswoman June Mummery.' The BBC has been approached for comment.
New European
19-05-2025
- Politics
- New European
Lee Anderson doesn't know Jack
Anderson – not noted as one of life's great readers – might want to reacquaint himself with the fairytale of Jack and the Beanstalk. Those magic beans allowed Jack to climb up to a giant's castle and return with such an abundance of treasure that he and his mother never had financial worries again. Reform were predictably up in arms about the UK-EU Brexit reset deal, with Lee Anderson fuming on X: 'Brexit Betrayal. Sir Keir Starmer went to the Single Market and came back with 5 magic beans.' Talking of unexpected financial windfalls, our thoughts are with the Reform think tank, established in 2002 to 'reimagine how the state operates in order to shape a new social settlement fit for today and the coming decades', but since rather overshadowed by a hard right party of the same name. The wonks lost their bid to stop Nigel Farage's merry band rebranding from the Brexit Party to Reform in 2021, and is now changing its own name up after receiving political donations in the post. 'We have had people sending us emails with their thoughts that they want to share with Nigel Farage,' Charlotte Pickles, its director, says. 'We've had some letters sent to our office building.' The think tank has also received a number of cheques (which it has destroyed). It has now rebranded itself Re:State in a bid to distance itself from the Faragistas. Let's hope none of Reform's current MPs nabs that one too when the inevitable split occurs and they're off to form a new party!
