By
Simon Walters
For a man who regards Brussels as the
biggest threat to Britain’s freedom since the Second World War, the
choice of beer for Nigel Farage was obvious when we met at the
Westminster Arms on Friday: Spitfire.
It
is brewed by Shepherd Neame in Kent to celebrate the Battle of Britain.
Farage, a man of Kent, gulped down the first pint in 15 minutes,
ordered a ‘reload,’ polishing off his second in another ten; and the
moment we stepped outside, he lit up a fag.
Yet this perky political warrior does not carry an ounce of fat and has the blemish-free complexion of a man half his 49 years.
Yet this perky political warrior does not carry an ounce of fat and has the blemish-free complexion of a man half his 49 years.
He has spent most of the day being
photographed toasting UKIP’s stunning advance in Thursday’s local
elections in another hostelry. Where does he put it all?
‘I’ve
always had hollow legs,’ he booms, taking another large swig of
Spitfire. He denies he is a heavy drinker but freely admits he was in
his days in the City. ‘I drank ridiculous amounts, spirits, champagne,
oh everything. I recall once when one of my lunch mates said it’s 4pm we
have to get back to work, I said “Come on, just one more bottle!” ’
Cue raucous laughter.
‘Honestly, I’m a moderate social drinker,’ he insists with a straight
face, before grinning: ‘But a regular one!’
You could imagine him propping up the bar of the Winchester Club with Arthur Daley.
Farage is a contradiction, a lovable spiv who appears to be the only political leader with a clear vision.
Coming back inside the pub, he
breezily dismisses the ‘greasy pole of politics’ and declares: ‘Good
grief, I don’t want to be in the Cabinet, I want to change the future
of this great country.
Ken Clarke branded the party 'clowns' potentially driving voters to UKIP
‘I’m going to do it and then I’ll go and do something else.’
While
wiping ale off his lips, Farage taunts fellow beer-lover Ken Clarke for
helping UKIP humiliate the entire political class. He says Clarke’s
eve-of-poll TV appearance, when he called UKIP ‘clowns’, was as
ill-judged as the ragged polo-neck the Cabinet Minister was wearing.
‘What
a fool. He looked as though he’d been dragged through a hedge backwards
after a heavy night,’ scoffs Farage, as neat as a tailor’s dummy in his
trademark pinstripe. ‘It provoked people to say, “Sod it, I’m going to
vote UKIP.”’
Farage
comments caustically: ‘I’m going to inaugurate the annual Kenneth Clarke
prize for contributions to euroscepticism – he must be a Brussels
double agent! The abuse didn’t soften our vote, it hardened it. It
typifies the stupidity of Cameron and Co.’
Farage
intends to twist the knife further by adopting Stephen Sondheim’s song,
Send In The Clowns, as UKIP’s conference anthem. He means it – and
shows off by singing the opening lines.
In
fact Clarke was partly right. It’s just that Farage has turned clowning
into a political art form. He is a cross between real-life professional
clown, Beppe Grillo, who took the recent Italian elections by storm on a
similar rabble-rousing platform, and a Thatcher.
But
the Thatcher he reminds me of is not Margaret, but Denis. A
politically incorrect, saloon-bar sage who somehow manages to make the
Right-wing policies that earned the Tories the crippling ‘Nasty Party’
tag seem, well, naughty but nice.
Farage said that he would join the Conservative Party but only if Prime Minister David Cameron were to quit
‘Denis
Thatcher? I’ll settle for that, he was a proper chap,’ says Farage. At
which point an aide runs into the bar with an election update: ‘We’ve
just hit 100 seats.’
‘Ton up! Cheers! My round . . . ’
It’s
not yet clear whether he will have similar success when it really
matters, in the 2015 General Election. Or whether UKIP’s support will
melt like spring snow, as did similar mid-term avalanches for the Lib
Dems when they, too, were the harmless protest party.
Farage insists not.
‘These elections
have exposed the great Tory myth, “Vote UKIP, get Miliband.” In many
areas, people who voted UKIP, got UKIP. That’s the real kick in the balls
for Cameron.’
Other political leaders live in a goldfish bowl, sealed off by flunkies who screen every call. Not Farage. Punters in the pub approach him, jab him in the chest and say, ‘Bloody well done Nige,’ as Farage’s raffish spin doctor, who looks more like a gamekeeper with his scarred cheek and tweed jacket, looks on, unconcerned.
Michale Gove has praised Nigel Farage and the UKIP leader is keen to return the compliment
Similarly,
Farage breaks off mid-sentence during a fierce attack on Cameron to
answer his mobile with a jaunty: ‘You still on for lunch tomorrow, Tom?
Splendid.’
Who is Tom? ‘My son,’ he replies, puzzled by my inquiry.
Who is Tom? ‘My son,’ he replies, puzzled by my inquiry.
‘Sorry,
where were we?’ he says. ‘Rewriting Britain’s political landscape,’ I
reply. ‘Oh yes,’ he continues, picking up his thread – and his glass.
‘UKIP is not going away.’
Does
he consider himself more of a real Tory than Cameron? ‘Good Lord yes,’
he chunters.
‘He’s not a Tory, he’s a socialist. Tory voters feel much
closer to me than their own leader. His priorities are gay marriage, foreign aid and wind farms. They’re not mine.’
The Westminster Arms is barely 100 yards from Parliament, which Farage now has in his crosshairs. He is gagging to stand in a by-election in Portsmouth South, plum UKIP territory, where Lib Dem MP Mike Hancock, beset by ill health and claims of sexual misconduct (which he strongly denies) is tipped to stand down.
Farage
will only do so after fulfilling his vow to lead UKIP into next year’s
Euro elections so is hoping Hancock stays on a bit longer, or, as Farage
puts it with tasteless glee: ‘Hang on Mike, stop groping for the
moment!’
But Farage has a
much grander dream and is ready to offer the Conservatives the
tantalising prospect of wiping out the threat UKIP poses. He and other
UKIP candidates would stand on a combined Tory/UKIP ticket, wearing the
rosettes of both parties.
You might even call it a Coalition.
But
it comes with a big price tag: Cameron’s head. Farage wants him
replaced by a Tory who, unlike Cameron, does not hate him. Such as
Michael Gove or Boris Johnson.
Gove’s
flowery flattery of Farage made its mark. ‘Gove is very canny,’ glowed
Farage, who clearly saw it as an overture from the Education Secretary
and was keen to return the compliment. ‘He is so much smarter than
Cameron – as is Boris.’
Cameron
has ruled out any electoral pact with UKIP. But Farage is convinced it
would be a different matter under Gove or Johnson. Both have made more
convincing eurosceptic noises than cautious Cameron. And neither has
been rash enough to dismiss Farage’s followers, as Cameron famously did,
as ‘fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists’. Farage will never forgive
him for that.
Could the
Tories and UKIP really run joint candidates? ‘Oh yes. I have sat round
the table with Conservative Party officials who have suggested it to
me.’
Farage's manifesto is a long way away from Clegg's (pictured) 'somersaulting' and Miliband's waffle
When Cameron ditched the Tory Party’s
Right-wing policies, he calculated his traditional supporters could not
ditch him as they had nowhere to go. The snarling pitbull face of
parties such as the BNP had always been too repulsive.
Put with a well groomed, performing Pekingese like Farage, Cameron’s strategy is in tatters.
To remove any doubts, Farage yaps he is the only UK political leader to have banned BNP members from joining his party.
Now
Farage aims to use his mandate to demand he is included in televised
debates between the party leaders, a prospect that will fill the other
three with dread.
Given the
enormous impact Nick Clegg made when he ran rings round Cameron and
Gordon Brown in the 2010 debates, imagine the havoc Naughty Nigel could
wreak.
‘Why not use next
year’s Euro elections as a dummy run?’ he says mischievously. ‘Would I
be scared of debating with this lot? Nah.’
Farage’s
manifesto appears to consist of standing with a pint in hand, cracking
jokes interspersed with saying ‘I hate Brussels’. Pretty crude for a
manifesto, but a breath of fresh air compared to the focus group fudge
of Cameron, clueless Clegg’s somersaults and Miliband’s nasal waffle on
welfare.
Farage claims ‘one
or two very senior Tories’ had congratulated him on the election
results, though he won’t name them. He denies one was Norman Tebbit, who
angered Cameron by calling on voters to back UKIP where a non-Tory had
the best chance of beating Labour.
‘How
the Tories haven’t expelled him for that is amazing,’ he says, scarcely
able to believe his luck. ‘What he said was very useful.’
Farage
may disagree, but there is no doubt there are some ‘fruitcakes,
loonies and closet racists’ among UKIP’s ranks, even if none are guilty
on all three counts.
He
says he regrets his boozy chauvinistic japes that have added to UKIP’s
image as being ‘on its worst days like a rugby club on tour’. I suspect
that is precisely why some men warm to Farage. He denies it is a
turn-off to women.
He says
the secret of his appeal is: ‘Be what you are, don’t pretend and don’t
take yourself too seriously, because the others are all terribly
po-faced.’
Nobody has ever called Nigel Farage that.
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