Standing at the lectern in a blue suit and red tie, Nigel Farage is his usual blend of bonhomie, backroom bar bore, and over-confident public school boy, tinged with a gentle whiff of self-pity.
“I have never been and wanted to be a career politician,” he is saying. “My aim of being in politics was to get Britain out of the European Union. I’ve done my bit! I couldn’t POSSIBLY have done more!” But he added, “it has come at a cost to me…. During the campaign I said I want my country back. Now I’m saying I want my life back. And it begins right now!”
No, this is not 2026. It’s 2016. And it’s 10 years to the week since the Reform leader made his “I want my life back!” speech.
Like a bad boyfriend, Farage is always breaking up with the British public. As Ukip leader, he resigned as leader three times, only to rise again like Lazarus every time. Then, after setting up the Brexit party, which became Reform UK – do keep up – Mr Farage resigned to let Richard Tice take over… before, erm, returning as leader at the 2024 election.
This time it’s even more confusing. Mr Farage is resigning as the MP for Clacton… so he can return as the MP for Clacton. All of which is particularly perplexing when, as he bellowed into the camera: “I HAVE DONE NOTHING WRONG”.
Dressed in very similar suit – but with the colour turned up to electric blue – this was Nigel Farage’s tribute act to himself. The Farage bingo card was well and truly ticked off – ‘establishment’, ‘mainstream media’, ‘pile on’, ‘foul means’, ‘making money is not a crime!’.
The voice swung between passionate shouting and gentle sadness, with occasional booming sections, like when the gambling adverts come on loudly in the middle of the football. “I have never been angrier in my life!” he shouted at one point, which for an angry person must be very angry indeed.
The Reform leader even threw in an obscure reference to a conspiracy theory where London is a place “where men can’t wear watches and women can’t wear jewellery.” News of which, when the screen went blank and we went back to the BBC’s London studio, seemed to have escaped the assembled watch and jewellery-wearing hacks and pundits.
It’s hard to know why it’s July that sees Farage at his most quit-able. In 2016, it may have simply been the thought of an endless summer of claret-quaffing stretching ahead in the South of France. In 2026, perhaps it’s the stifling 31 degree heat in the capital that has sent him over the edge.
But it’s not just London commuters who are in a sticky situation. Since the second coming of Andy Burnham, and the fungal growth of Rupert Lowe’s Restore, Farage’s party have hit a glass ceiling in terms of support, as vote share declines. There’s bickering between former Tory action man, Robert Jenrick and Question Time’s Zia Yusuf. Questions have been asked about benefits Mr Farage received from convicted fraudster George Cottrell – aka Posh George.
Separately, the Reform leader has been under investigation from Parliament’s standards commissioner since May, after not declaring a £5m gift he received from a foreign-based donor before his election as Clacton’s MP. It was also highly probable that his own constituents would have brought a ‘recall’ petition had the parliamentary commissioner found he had done wrong.
All of which is not to suggest that Mr Farage does not have genuine security concerns. His daughter has the right to her own privacy and safety. It is disgraceful that any politician in a modern democracy should receive death threats or physical threats. But other MPs who face the same hatred – and, in a terrible indictment of our current times, most do – do not have a £5 million slush fund.
Meanwhile, his claim that he is the most threatened politician of modern times is distasteful, when two MPs from different sides of the House, Labour’s Jo Cox and the Conservatives’ David Amess, lost their lives simply for doing their jobs. As ever, Farage has cast the Clacton by-election as ‘The People vs the Establishment’.
Since there can be no-one more establishment than a former City trader who went to one of England poshest schools funded by a foreign millionaire and a gentleman fraudster, we can only hope The People win.