Nigel Farage

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Farage in 2009

Nigel Paul Farage (born 3 April 1964) is an English former-politician who was leader of the Brexit Party, and previously served as the leader of the UK Independence Party and Member of the European Parliament.

Farage hosts a TV programme on GB News in the UK on Mondays-Thursdays at 8PM GMT+0

Quotes[edit]

2002[edit]

  • I think that politics needs a bit of spicing up.

2004[edit]

  • We seek an amicable divorce from the European Union and its replacement with a genuine free-trade agreement, which is what my parents' generation thought we’d signed up for in the first place.
    • In UKIP news (issue 56), July 2004.

2010[edit]

  • You have the charisma of a damp rag, and the appearance of a low-grade bank clerk. And the question that I want to ask, […] that we're all going to ask, is "Who are you?" I'd never heard of you. Nobody in Europe had ever heard of you. I would like to ask you, President, who voted for you, and what mechanism … oh, I know democracy's not popular with you lot, and what mechanism do the people of Europe have to remove you? Is this European democracy? Well, I sense, I sense though that you are competent and capable and dangerous, and I have no doubt in your intention, to be the quiet assassin of European democracy, and of the European nation states. You appear to have a loathing for the very concept of the existence of nation states - perhaps that's because you come from Belgium, which of course is pretty much a non-country. But since you took over, we've seen Greece reduced to nothing more than a protectorate. Sir, you have no legitimacy in this job at all, and I can say with confidence that I speak on behalf of the majority of British people in saying: We don't know you, we don't want you, and the sooner you're put out to grass, the better.
  • I have been called a great many things in my time – that's politics.

2012[edit]

  • And I honestly predict that I mean this. That if we go on doing this to Greece. We will drive that country into a violent revolution.
  • And what is the reaction of the British political class? Well the Lib Dems, still think that the Euro is a success! I don't quite think where Cleggy gets this from, I don't know. Perhaps he is considering an alternative career as a stand up comedian, once he's out of politics.
    • Another segment of a speech held in a UKIP meeting on 21 February 2012. When Nigel Farage explains on the reactions on Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem politicians on the failing Euro currency - Nigel Farage met Angel Merkel
  • It is virtually impossible for what you are voting on to remain as it is currently. There could be huge changes to the [EU fiscal] treaty and there could be huge changes to the euro zone itself.
  • The EU is mired in deep structural crisis. Greece, Portugal and Ireland cannot survive inside the Euro.
  • If Spain goes, Europe on its own will not be big enough to save the banks.
  • The situation in Greece just goes from bad to worse. We’ve now got a situation where there was the big suicide a few weeks ago, where a 77-year-old man shot himself in the head outside the Greek Parliament. That was the public face of what’s gone wrong.
  • But do you know that every day there are people that are literally leaving their children at the doors of the Greek Orthodox Church, with notes around their necks saying, ‘We cannot afford to feed or look after these children, please take them from us.’ Can you imagine that?
  • This is taking place inside Europe. This is taking place inside a once great nation. The nation that invented democracy. We are on the edge of total social breakdown. And frankly, as far as the euro is concerned and the austerity measures are concerned, the medicine is killing the patient.
  • I do think that the banking system is now in the most perilous state we’ve seen in over 70 years.
  • Basically, Herman van Rompuy wants the European Union to become a debt union, which may be acceptable to some of the southern countries who are effectively bust. To the northern countries, it is not.
  • As you are well aware, the last time the people of this country were given a say on membership of the European Union was back in 1975. This must have been a factor in your thinking when, in 2007, you gave a “cast-iron guarantee” to hold a referendum if you became Prime Minister. Since that promise, however, your message on the issue has been confusing and misleading. You say the time is not right but refuse to clarify when the time will be right. You believe that leaving would not be in our best interests and an in/out referendum is flawed because it offers a “single choice”. In last week’s Sun poll, almost 70 per cent of voters said they would like a referendum. In the same poll, a clear majority said they would like to leave the EU and yet your plans would deny them that opportunity. I believe the British people, along with many of your own backbench MPs, want and deserve a straight in/out choice in a referendum. I propose a public debate between us where we can put our respective cases forward. My challenge to you is an open and honest one and I hope you will afford me, and the people of this country, a proper say on the matter.
  • We know the costs of Europe. What are the benefits?
  • Rather than bring peace and harmony, the EU will cause insurgency and violence.

2013[edit]

  • I have to say that everybody from David Cameron to half this panel say, "Wouldn't it be terrible if we were like Norway and Switzerland?" Really? They're rich. They're happy. They're self governing.
  • I am delighted at Des's support in these elections. And thank him for his rewrite of the lyrics of Send in the Clowns which we are planning to sing at our South East conference.

2014[edit]

  • When I said yes to these debates I thought you would honestly make the pro-EU case. By saying 7% of our laws are made in Brussels, you are wilfully lying to the British people about the extent to which we have given control of our country and our democracy and I am really shocked and surprised you would do that.
  • [immigration is] good for the rich because it's cheaper nannies and cheaper chauffeurs and cheaper gardeners but it's bad news for ordinary Britons... it has left the white working class effectively as an underclass, and I think that is a disaster for our society
  • The Labour Party hate the concept of Englishness. They have done for a very long time. New Labour can't even stand the concept of patriotism. They think the flag somehow is unpleasant, backward-looking and nasty. People like Emily Thornberry would rather we had that blue flag with 12 stars on it that comes to us from Brussels.

2015[edit]

  • Of course we're good enough. Switzerland has negotiated more global free-trade agreements than we have, without being part of the European Union, and Iceland, with a population of 300,000 people has signed its own tariff-free deal with China.
  • A couple of times I've been stuck on the motorway and surrounded by swarms of potential migrants to Britain and once, even, they tried the back door of the car to see whether they could get in.

2016[edit]

  • There's not much point in having a United Kingdom if we're governed from somewhere else. We may as well become a satellite state of the European Union because that's virtually what we are. Our courts aren't supreme. Our parliaments aren't supreme, whether that's in Holyrood or in Westminster. This is not about Scotland's relationship with Westminster. This is about whether Scotland wants to be part of an independent UK.
  • We are being sold that this is all about trade and that the single market is soft and cuddly and lovely like a baby puppy. But actually it is a smokescreen for the real, simply proposition of this referendum. It's actually rather simple: do you wish us to be a self-governing, independent, democratic nation or part of a bigger, broader, European Union?
  • We have fought against the multinationals, we have fought against the big merchant banks, we have fought against big politics, we have fought against lies, corruption and deceit, and today honesty, decency and belief in nation, I think now is going to win. And we will have done it without having to fight, without a single bullet being fired. We'd have done it by damned hard work on the ground.

2017[edit]

  • All of us in our lives go through ups and downs and I regret the down that I am in at the moment. But I make this plea, particularly to the media - please leave my wife and children alone. Don't hassle them, don't intimidate them. They don't deserve it and it's simply not fair.
  • There are about six million Jewish people living in America, so as a percentage it’s quite small, but in terms of influence it’s quite big. Well in terms of money and influence they are a powerful lobby and America has interfered elections all over the world for decades, there is a degree of hypocrisy. [...] he makes the point that there are powerful foreign lobbies in the US, and the Jewish lobby with its links to the Israeli government is one of those strong voices.

2018[edit]

  • The very idea of Tommy Robinson being at the centre of the Brexit debate is too awful to contemplate. And so, with a heavy heart, and after all my years of devotion to the party, I am leaving Ukip today. There is a huge space for a Brexit party in British politics, but it won’t be filled by Ukip.

2019[edit]

2020[edit]

  • So this is it, the final chapter, the end of the road. A 47-year political experiment that the British frankly have never been very happy with. My mother and father signed up to a common market, not to a political union, flags, anthems, presidents, and now you even want your own army. For me, it has been 27 years of campaigning and over 20 years here in this parliament. I’m not particularly happy with the agreement we’re being asked to vote on tonight. But Boris has been remarkably bold in the last few months… he’s promised us there will be no level playing field, and on that basis, I wish him every success in the next round of negotiations, I really do.
    • EU Farewell Speech, as quoted in Nigel Farage’s Final EU Speech: Mic Gets Cut as He Waves UK Flag in Victory, Breitbart news
  • What happens at 11pm this Friday the 31st of January 2020 marks the point of no return. Once we’ve left, we’re never coming back and the rest frankly is detail. We’re going, and we will be gone. And that should be the summit of my own political ambitions. I walked in here, you all thought it was terribly funny but you stopped laughing in 2016. But my view of Europe has changed since I joined. In 2005, I saw the constitution that had been drafted… and saw it rejected by the French in a referendum. I saw it rejected by the Dutch in a referendum. And I saw you, in these institutions, ignore them. [You brought it back] as the Lisbon treaty, and boast you could ram it through without there being referendums. Well, the Irish did have a vote and did say no, and were forced to vote again. You’re very good at making people to vote again, but what we’ve proved is the British are too big to bully, thank goodness. So I became an outright opponent of the whole European project. I want Brexit to start a debate across the whole of Europe. What do we want from Europe? If we want trade, friendship cooperation, reciprocity, we don’t need a European Commission, we don’t need a European court. We don’t need these institutions and all of this power. And I can promise you, both in UKIP and in the Brexit party, we love Europe. We just hate the European Union.
    • EU Farewell Speech, as quoted in Nigel Farage’s Final EU Speech: Mic Gets Cut as He Waves UK Flag in Victory, Breitbart news
  • I hope this begins the end of this project. It is a bad project. It isn’t just undemocratic, it is antidemocratic. It puts in that front row, it gives people power without unaccountability. People who cannot be held to account by the electorate and that is an unacceptable structure.
    • EU Farewell Speech, as quoted in Nigel Farage’s Final EU Speech: Mic Gets Cut as He Waves UK Flag in Victory, Breitbart news
  • There is a historic battle going on across the west, in Europe, America, and elsewhere. It is globalism against populism. And you may loathe populism, but I’ll tell you a funny thing. It is becoming very popular! And it has great benefits. No more financial contributions, no more European Courts of Justice. No more European Common Fisheries Policy, no more being talked down to. No more being bullied, no more Guy Verhofstadt! What’s not to like. I know you’re going to miss us, I know you want to ban our national flags, but we’re going to wave you goodbye, and we’ll look forward in the future to working with you as a sovereign nation… [Farage is cut off by the chair]
    • EU Farewell Speech, as quoted in Nigel Farage’s Final EU Speech: Mic Gets Cut as He Waves UK Flag in Victory, Breitbart news

Quotes about Farage[edit]

In alphabetical order by author or source.
  • Farage, who earns his living as a City commodity-broker, is a man who often used words such as `nigger' and `nig-nog' in the pub after committee meetings.

External links[edit]

Wikipedia
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  1. ↑ Wheen, Francis (13 October 1999). "The right revs up". The Guardian (London). 
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