Nigel Farage

Nigel Farage MEP
File:Farage.jpg
Leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party
In office 27 September 2006 – 27 November 2009
Preceded by	Roger Knapman
Succeeded by	The Lord Pearson of Rannoch
Member of the European Parliament for the South East
Incumbent
Assumed office 15 July 1999
Personal details
Born	(1964-04-03) 3 April 1964 Kent, United Kingdom
Political party	UK Independence Party

Nigel Paul Farage (Template:Pron-en; born 3 April 1964) is a British politician, currently the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) Member of the European Parliament for South East England. As a noted Eurosceptic, he co-chairs the European Parliament's Europe of Freedom and Democracy group.

He was a founding member of the UKIP, having left the Conservative Party in 1992 after they signed the Treaty on European Union at Maastricht. Having unsuccessfully campaigned in European and Westminster parliamentary elections for UKIP since 1994, in 1999 he was elected MEP for South East England, and was subsequently re-elected in 2004 and 2009.

In 2006 Farage became UKIP Leader, although he stepped down in 2009 to concentrate on contesting the Speaker John Bercow's seat of Buckingham in the 2010 general election.

In October 2009, he was ranked 41st (out of 100) in The Daily Telegraph's Top 100 most influential right-wingers poll, citing his media savvy and his success with UKIP in the European Elections.

Shortly after the polls opened on 6 May 2010, Nigel Farage was injured in a plane crash in Northamptonshire. The two-seated PZL-104 Wilga 35A had been towing a pro-UKIP banner when it flipped over and crashed shortly after takeoff. Both Farage and the pilot were hospitalised with minor injuries.

Political career

Conservative Party

Active in the Conservative Party from his school days until the resignation of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1990, Farage left the party in 1992 when John Major's government signed the Treaty on European Union at Maastricht.

UKIP and the European Parliament

Farage became a founding member of UKIP in 1993.

He was elected to the European Parliament in 1999 and re-elected in 2004 and 2009. Farage is currently leader of the thirteen-member UKIP contingent in the European Parliament, and co-leader of the multinational eurosceptic group, Europe of Freedom and Democracy.

UKIP party leadership

Farage in 2008 in the prime of his leadership

On 12 September 2006, Farage was elected leader of UKIP with 45% of the vote, 20% ahead of his nearest rival. He pledged to bring discipline to the party and to maximise UKIP's representation in local, parliamentary and other elections. In a PM programme interview on BBC Radio 4 that day he pledged to end the public perception of UKIP as a single-issue party and to work with allied politicians in the Better Off Out campaign, committing himself not to stand against the MPs who have signed up to that campaign (ten in all at this moment).

At his maiden speech to the UKIP conference on 8 October 2006, he told delegates that the party was "at the centre-ground of British public opinion" and the "real voice of opposition". Farage said: "We've got three social democratic parties in Britain — Labour, Lib Dem and Conservative are virtually indistinguishable from each other on nearly all the main issues" and "you can't put a cigarette paper between them and that is why there are nine million people who don't vote now in general elections that did back in 1992."

At 10pm on 19 October 2006, Farage took part in a three-hour live interview and phone-in with James Whale on national radio station talkSPORT. Four days later, Whale announced on his show his intention to stand as UKIP's candidate in the 2008 London Mayoral Election. Farage said that Whale "not only has guts, but an understanding of what real people think". However Whale later decided not to stand and UKIP was represented by Gerard Batten.

Westminster elections

Farage had unsuccessfully contested UK parliamentary elections for UKIP five times, both before and after his election as an MEP in 1999. Under the 2002 European Union decision to forbid MEPs from holding a dual mandate, if he was ever elected to the House of Commons, he would have to resign his seat as an MEP.

When he contested the Bromley & Chislehurst constituency in a May 2006 by-election, organised after the sitting MP representing it, eurosceptic Conservative Eric Forth, died, Farage scored third, winning 8% of the vote, beating the Labour Party candidate. This was the second-best by-election result recorded by UKIP out of 25 results, and the first time since the Liverpool Walton by-election in 1991 that a party in government had been pushed into fourth place in a parliamentary by-election on mainland Britain.

2010 UK General election

On 4 September 2009, it was announced Farage would resign as leader of UKIP. This was to enable him to concentrate on his efforts to become the elected Member of Parliament for Buckingham at Westminster in the 2010 general election.

He stood against Buckingham MP John Bercow, the newly elected Speaker of the House of Commons, despite a convention that the speaker, as a political neutral, is not normally challenged in their bid for re-election by any of the major parties.

On 6 May, on the morning the polls opened in the election, just before eight o'clock Farage was involved in a light plane crash, suffering injuries described as non-life threatening. A spokesperson told the BBC that "it was unlikely Mr Farage would be discharged from hospital today [6 May] ... He suffered facial cuts and bruises and injuries to his chest and there might be some damage to his ribs." The plane was towing a UKIP banner, and initial reports suggested that the plane crashed after the banner was caught up in the engine.

Farage came third with 8,401 votes. Bercow was re-elected, and an independent who campaigned with "Flipper the Dolphin" (a reference to MPs flipping second homes) came second.

Possible Second Leadership

File:Lord-P-and-Nigel-in-Buckingham.gif

Nigel Farage and Lord Pearson are UKIP's two main figure heads

After Lord Malcolm Pearson's shock resignation on August 17th 2010, Nigel explained in a BBC interview how he was considering giving the leadership another go but wouldn't announce anything until UKIP's party conference in Torquay. He also paid tribute to Pearson, describing the Lord as the most honest man he'd ever met. Him standing for the leadership would entirely depend on whether he felt up to the job after his recent accident on election day.

The only current contender for the leadership is David Campbell-Bannerman.

Controversies and whistleblowing

Expenses disclosure

Farage in 2009

In May 2009, The Guardian reported that Farage had said in a speech to the Foreign Press Association that over ten years as a member of the European Parliament he received and spent nearly £2 million of taxpayers' money in expenses and allowances, on top of his £64,000 a year salary.

The former Europe Minister, Denis MacShane, said that this showed that Farage was "happy to line his pockets with gold". Farage called this a "misrepresentation", pointing out that the money had been used to promote UKIP's message, not salary, but he welcomed the focus on the issue of MEP expenses, claiming that "[o]ver a five year term each and every one of Britain's 78 MEPs gets about £1 million. It is used to employ administrative staff, run their offices and to travel back and forth between their home, Brussels and Strasbourg." He also pointed out the money spent on the YES campaign in Ireland by the European Commission was "something around 440 million", making the NO campaign's figure insignificant in comparison.

Jacques Barrot

On 18 November 2004, Farage announced in the European Parliament that Jacques Barrot, the French Commissioner designate, had been barred from elected office in France for 2 years, after being convicted in 2000 of embezzling £2 million from government funds and diverting it into the coffers of his party. He claimed that French President Jacques Chirac had granted Barrot amnesty. Although initial BBC reports claimed that, under French law, it was illegal even to mention the conviction, the prohibition in question only applies to French officials in the course of their duties. The president of the Parliament, Josep Borrell, enjoined him to retract his comments under threat of "legal consequences". However, the following day it was confirmed that Barrot had received an 8 month suspended jail sentence in the case, and that this had been quickly expunged by the amnesty decided by Chirac and his parliamentary majority. The Commission's president, Jose Manuel Barroso admitted that he had not known of Barrot's criminal record when appointing him as a Commission vice-president. The Socialist and Liberal groups in the European Parliament then joined UKIP in demanding the sacking of Barrot for failing to disclose the conviction during his confirmation hearings.

José Manuel Barroso

During the spring of 2005, Farage requested that the European Commission disclose where the individual Commissioners had spent their holidays. The Commission did not provide the information requested, on the basis that the Commissioners had a right of privacy. The German newspaper Die Welt reported that the President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso had spent a week on the yacht of the Greek shipping billionaire Spiro Latsis. It emerged soon afterwards that this had occurred a month before the Commission under Barroso's predecessor Romano Prodi approved 10.3 million euro of Greek state aid for Latsis' shipping company. It also became known that Peter Mandelson, then a member of the Commission, had accepted a trip to Jamaica from an unrevealed source.

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. The motion was successfully tabled on 12 May 2005, and Barroso appeared before Parliament at a debate on 26 May 2005. The motion was heavily defeated. A Conservative MEP, Roger Helmer, was expelled from his group, the European People's Party - European Democrats (EPP-ED) in the middle of the debate by that group's leader Hans-Gert Poettering as a result of his support for Farage's motion.

Joseph Daul

In January 2007, the French farmers' leader Joseph Daul was elected the new leader of the European People's Party–European Democrats (EPP-ED), the European Parliamentary grouping which then included the British Conservatives. The UK Independence Party almost immediately revealed that Daul had been under judicial investigation in France since 2004 as part of an inquiry into the alleged misuse of public funds worth €16 million (£10.6 million) by French farming unions." It was not suggested that Daul had personally benefited, but was accused of "complicity and concealment of the abuse of public funds." Daul accused Farage of publicising the investigation for political reasons and threatened to sue Farage, but did not do so.

Prince Charles

Prince Charles gave a speech to the European Parliament on 14 February 2008, in which he called for EU leadership in the war against climate change. During the standing ovation that followed, Farage was the only MEP to remain seated and went on to describe the Prince's advisers as "naïve and foolish at best." Farage continued: "How can somebody like Prince Charles be allowed to come to the European Parliament at this time to announce he thinks it should have more powers? It would have been better for the country he wants to rule one day if he had stayed home and tried to persuade Gordon Brown to give the people the promised referendum [on the Treaty of Lisbon]." The leader of the UK Labour Party's MEPs, Gary Titley, accused Farage of anti-Royalism. Titley said: "I was embarrassed and disgusted when the Leader of the UK Independence Party, Nigel Farage, remained firmly seated during the lengthy standing ovation Prince Charles received. I had not realised Mr Farage's blind adherence to right wing politics involved disloyalty and discourtesy to the Royal Family. He should be thoroughly ashamed of himself and should apologise to the British people he represents."

Herman Van Rompuy

After the speech of Herman Van Rompuy on 24 February 2010 in the European parliament, Farage—to protests from other MEPs—taunted the first long-term President of the European Council by saying he has the "charisma of a damp rag" and the "appearance of low grade bank clerk", also asserting that Van Rompuy's "intention is to be the quiet assassin of European democracy and of European nation states." He also referred to Belgium as a "non-country", and that "nobody in Europe" knows who Rompuy is, nor how he was elected.. Van Rompuy commented afterwards, "There was one contribution that I can only hold in contempt, but I'm not going to comment further." After refusing to apologise for behaviour that was, in the words of the President of the European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek, "inappropriate, unparliamentary and insulting to the dignity of the House", Farage was reprimanded and had his right to ten days' allowance (expenses) rescinded.

Electoral performance

Nigel Farage has contested several elections under the United Kingdom Independence Party banner:

• Itchen, Test and Avon, European Parliament Election 1994 - 12,423 votes, representing 5.2% of total votes cast
• Eastleigh by-election, 1994 - 952, 1.4%
• Salisbury, 1997 general election - 3,332, 5.7%
• European Parliament election, 1999 - elected member for South East England from party list
• Bexhill and Battle, 2001 general election - 3,474, 7.8%
• European Parliament election, 2004 - elected member for South East England from party list
• South Thanet, 2005 general election - 2,079, 5.0%
• Bromley and Chislehurst by-election, 2006 - 2,307, 8.0%
• European Parliament election, 2009 - elected member for South East England from party list.
• Buckingham, 2010 general election - 8,410, 17.4%

Outside politics

Farage was educated at Dulwich College before joining a commodity brokerage firm in London. He ran his own brokerage business from the early 1990s until 2002.

Farage has been married twice. He married Gráinne Hayes in 1988, with whom he had two children: Samuel (1989) and Thomas (1991). In 1999 he married Kirsten Mehr, a German national, by whom he has two more children, Victoria (born 2000) and Isabelle (born 2005).

References

• 2002 amnesty law
• Penal Code, articles L133-9, L133-10, L133-11

External links

• Profile at European Parliament website
• Political group at the European Parliament