Nigel Farage has written his autobiography and jolly pleased he is with it too. A Flashman-like character, with his velvet collar on his camel hair coat, his occasional trilby and absolute detestation of anything that gets in the way of right-thinking, freeborn Englishness, he holds himself out as a man against all rules (‘I hate signs’), charging through life emitting ‘spontaneous outbursts of the heart’. I was reminded of Douglas Adams’ and John Lloyd’s book The Meaning of Liff, where they invented meanings for place names. This book gives the English language a new collective noun: a Farage, meaning a collection of thoughts that sound more and more plausible the closer you lean on the bar and the more fervently your mates agree with you; only a true Farageiste fails to see in the morning that they were the product of good wine rather than deep social analysis.
It is an unparodiable laundry basket of choleric assertions: ‘It’s a free country [are] words that ring hollow [in the UK] today.’ Fashions in teaching have swung ‘towards the college-trained spoonfeeders’; we live in ‘the age of mediocrity’; we are ruled by ‘the urban minority’.
And so it goes on in a surprisingly enjoyable but ill-informed Tufton-Bufton torrent out into a world at the heart of which he stands, the only truth teller, ‘the only person who has ruffled the Blair calm’, the person who ‘flatters himself that Question Time tends to be more interesting’ when he is there.
He grew up with an absent alcoholic father, whose liking for drink he has inherited. He simply cannot abide homogeneity, government or other people’s views. In his twenties he was almost killed when, drunk, he walked into an oncoming car. He was famously almost killed again in a plane crash in the 2010 election trying to fly a banner saying Vote For Your Country, Vote UKIP. He has had testicular cancer, a divorce, been sacked from his job, involved in innumerable plots within UKIP to oust leaders, make leaders and finally become the leader. The book rollicks through all of this borne on the ultimate conviction that we are no longer able to govern ourselves as we have given all our powers away to Brussels and every moment of your life is controlled by the EU ‘Soviet’. In essence, the 320 pages are one long Farage.
—————————————————————————————
Simon Fanshawe is a writer and equalities consultant
—————————————————————————————
Flying Free
Nigel Farage | Biteback Publishing | 320pp | £9.99
Interesting stuff. Farage, despite being Farage, finally stumbled on the democracy narrative with Europe which has proven to be very effective recently….no shocks there. I really enjoyed his last speech was very good because it will tie in to the concerns of many, many people not limited to the UK.
Labour is finished in Europe as a serious contender because it has been exposed for what it really wants from Europe and people have realized this thankfully.
I am really interested to see what will happen at the next Euro-non-election. It will be fascinating stuff within the context of changes that will occur between now and then. In terms of quality as a politician as long as you are direct and straight you don’t have to have much skill to succeed today with the brief following parrot fashion politicians we see on TV that are ludicrously appalling, probably there performing a process to please there own immediate colleagues more than the media, the public and the world at large.
Farage of course, is a symbol of failure. But he is better than Nick Griffin and far more amusing.
It will the the Boris Johnsons and Farages that will keep up spirits for many people while the political unelites blunder around aimlessly on their eternal journey of self discovery, trying to work out what politics and what it is for and why we have democracy and why we mustn’t be naughty to it while the rest of us watch in a bemused acceptance that decline has become the main theme for Labour and possibly the others too.
Because of the low quality and cheap price that it requires to buy a Labour MP who will as history has shown do anything in return even place our national security at risk, it’s far too dangerous for the greater scheme of things to allow such blind dismissive reckless stupidity to establish itself in any meaningful on any platform of power whatsoever.
What we really need is a new political Party and leave Labour chasing after Lib and Tory voters.
Farage has attempted to do this but has not created the narrative he needs to convince people to turn away from the Tories whilst Labour voters simply refuse to vote as they feel they have no socialist/moralist or similar alternative to Labour.
Farage has a difficult problem then in domestic elections there is a way he can get round this and make a substantive assault on the center ground pursued by the two main parties. However it would require some creativity and also he would also have to work out how to ensure the domestic platform in policy terms would work coherently with the EU platform, the other danger would be mainly from the Labour Party which would be swift to emulate any popular moves Farage makes as a party that no longer has any consistent narrative form or definitive position as it emulates the strategy of Blair.
Farage would need a very popular or very talented team to build a domestic party then and his best method would be to recruit people from ordinary professions as a mixed bag. If he can create a democratic platform with this with frank and open debate he will be worlds ahead of the less democratic parties who in their decline have so little time for ideas that challenge their vested interests or the focus groups designed to say what MPs want to hear to reinforce their own agendas.
Because of the nature of his Party Farage does not have to worry about any kind of “cleaning up” of politics only focus on the narrative of greater powers of Parliament and possibly with decentralized power to local communities. The democratic angle will serve him well but again, it will require a very potent message from him to convince the voters to take him seriously in a domestic election to articulate an effective narrative even beyond their failings and I don’t think he has it or will find it.
Trouble is, most of what Farage has been ranting on about over the last 15 years has been proven to actually be correct!
His description of how the EU actually works (a “Parliament” that only sits for 60 days per year, and whose sole purpose is to rubber-stamp edicts from the unelected Commission) is deeply disturbing for anyone who loves democracy.
Farage is actually a well-meaning patriot, who has been proven correct on most of the major issues, however much that pains “progressives” to admit. The EU is a deeply corrupt & undemocratic organisation which is eating the UK alive. The public have twigged this, and want out. But the political elite in the UK don’t care about the views of the little people. It’s a very scary situation that everyone who loves democracy should actually be very concerned about.
You need to take Mr Farage a lot more seriously, as he represents the mainstream views of a very large section of the British public, who want this EU steamroller stopped, and reversed. I thought it was a fabulous book, and I’ll definitely be voting UKIP at the next election!