Farage's outrageous past from National Front row to 'affair' and sexist remarks
It looks set to be one of those series of I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! that will grab the headlines… and mostly because of one man.
Nigel Farage has agreed to go into the jungle - so the prospect of him eating live insects and camel’s testicles on our TV screens is a major coup for the hit show, and something producers clearly believe makes his reported £1.5million fee more than worth it. But while there is no doubting that Farage slumming it in the I’m A Celeb camp will make great TV, others point out that the former UKIP leader and Brexit campaigner is no pantomime villain.
In fact he has been accused of whipping up hatred and division - and of harbouring extreme right-wing views - right back to his school days. Teachers at Dulwich College in south London reportedly tried to stop the headteacher making Farage a prefect, writing a letter in June 1981 warning he had “publicly professed racist and fascist views’ and also claim that he once marched through a Sussex village singing Hitler Youth songs.
Nigel Farage will enter the jungle for this year's I'm A Celebrity (ITV)Farage strongly denied singing any Hitler Youth songs, saying he did not know the words. And in 2019 a fellow pupil at the school claimed he said he was proud that at the height of Britain’s far right movement his initials NF also stood for National Front. The close school friend, who wrote an open letter to Farage in the Independent, also claimed the pupil would sing ‘gas ‘em all, gas ‘em all’, a Neo-Nazi song about Jewish people and expressed support for British 1930s fascist Oswald Mosley.
At the time, when asked about his friend’s remarks, Mr Farage was quoted as saying: “To say that this is going over old ground is an understatement. The period during which I was at Dulwich was highly politically charged with the rise of Thatcherism to the Brixton riots just down the road. There were many people of that time who were attracted to extreme groups on both sides of the debate.”
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He added: “Whoever sent you this must be a little of touch to say that I supported Oswald Mosley as he believed in a United States of Europe. Some people need to get over Brexit.” Since then, and especially after he became the leader of UKIP, he has revelled in his reputation for what he calls ‘plain speaking’. He has also found himself at the centre of questions about his financial affairs, and his treatment of women.
In 2013, he said he supported Muslim immigrants who “integrate” but not those who are “coming here to take us over”. The following year he said he felt “uncomfortable” when he heard people speaking in other languages on London transport, and that he would be concerned if Romanian immigrants moved in next door to him.
That same year he blamed immigrants for making him late to an event where he was speaking, saying his lateness “has nothing to do with professionalism, what it does have to do with is a country in which the population is going through the roof chiefly because of open-door immigration.” He later said the “basic principal” of Enoch Powell’s infamous anti-immigration ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech was correct. Others have claimed what he has said in private was even more inflammatory.
UKIP founder Alan Sked once recalled an argument he and Farage had in 1997 about who should be standing for their new party. Farage, said Sked, “wanted ex-National Front candidates to run, and I said, ‘I’m not sure about that,’ and he said, ‘There’s no need to worry about the n****r vote. The n**-n**s will never vote for us.’” Farage denies having said this.
Several Jewish organisations have also slammed Farage after UKIP aligned itself with Robert Iwaszkiewicz of the Polish Congress of the New Right (KNP), who has been condemned as a Holocaust denier. The Board of Deputies of British Jews said it was “beyond belief” that UKIP was linked to the far-right politician, who is known for making racist comments.
Nigel previously campaigned for Brexit (AFP/Getty Images)He's a highly divisive figure, with Man United legend Gary Neville summing it up last year saying: "I can’t believe this f*****g idiot has been prominent in politics in this country for the last few years. He’s divisive, dangerous and a disgrace to the UK."
Farage has also shown what has been described as a contempt for women. He once said that breastfeeding mothers should “sit in the corner” and not breastfeed in an “ostentatious way” to protect those who feel “very uncomfortable” or “embarrassed”. And in 2014 he argued that working mothers are “worth less” to employers than fathers who don’t take time off work. He added that “Maybe it’s because I’ve got so many women pregnant over the years that I have a different view [of maternity leave].”
It’s another area of his life that many will find far from entertaining. In 2017 it was claimed Farage - who put himself across as an advocate of family values - had systematically lied about an affair with a vulnerable former aide for more than a decade. Annabelle Fuller said she and Farage, a married man more than 17 years her senior, had a sexual relationship dating from 2004, but she was told to keep their relationship secret at all costs and accused him of hypocrisy.
She said: “Nigel and I both knew we had to keep quiet to save Brexit. We are both liars and hypocrites but the reason I had to lie throughout the years was that I didn’t want UKIP or the cause we were fighting for to be damaged.” Farage declined to confirm or deny the affair and has yet to speak about it.
He has also been accused of double standards in his financial affairs. Farage - who worked as a City commodities trader after he left school, condemned tax avoiders in a speech to the European parliament - but then admitted setting up a trust fund in an offshore tax haven himself.
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He claimed he had not personally benefitted from the Farage Family Educational Trust 1654 set up on the Isle of Man.
Further questions were asked after he admitted claiming more than £205,000 taxpayers’ money from his MEP allowances for an office which was actually provided to him free of charge by a UKIP supporter.
Nigel Farage joins a host of other celebrities for this year's series on ITV (ITV)It was also revealed that in the year after the Brexit referendum British businessman and Leave.EU campaign co-founder Aaron Banks helped bankroll Farage’s lifestyle to the tune of £450,000 - paying for his London home, his car and trips to the US to meet Donald Trump.
The donations were not declared on Farage’s register of interests, which he should have done as a serving MEP. Even after announcing he was retiring from politics in March 2021 the 59-year-old has courted publicity - and controversy. When he accused the RNLI of being a “taxi service” for illegal immigrants it caused a huge public backlash with donations to the service rising by 3000% in the wake of his remarks.
He also launched Farage Gin - at £40 a bottle, in red, white or blue, got his own show on GBNews, and waged a war against elite bank Coutts for closing his bank account because his views didn’t “align with their values”. He channels his earnings through his own company, which, as of May last year, held over £million and made a profit for the year of over £480,000.
After the next few weeks in the Australian jungle Nigel Farage will no doubt have caused more shock and controversy - and that bank balance will be even bigger.
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