The £5 million donation and its cover-up have revealed to the whole of the UK who Farage really is.
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An entire career disregarding parliamentary rules and taking millions from wealthy donors for favours is about to catch up with Nigel Farage.
There are three striking characteristics about Nigel Farage if you are ever to get close to who some people are calling ‘Britain’s next prime minister’. One is that he has a shocking disregard for rules and regulations; secondly, he’s a prolific liar; and lastly, he is absurdly thin-skinned. Recently he has been dominating social media timelines due to a £5 million donation from a crypto billionaire – but not for the gift itself, rather for how Farage has lied so much since it was revealed, which has generated a whole new debate about the man and his persona, leading many to ask: do we want a right-wing PM who can’t stop lying? The problem, of course, with lying is that it presents a two-fold challenge. Firstly, all lies need more lies to cover them up, while secondly, the more popular and mainstream you become, the more your lies are held up as legitimate media fodder to use against you to create column inches. Farage is such a prolific victim of his lying and his loathing of rules and laws that he has created a massive media story about himself, which simply won’t go away and which is being boosted more and more each day by his ‘foot-in-mouth’ arrogance and sensational clumsiness on TV, as journalists and presenters won’t let the subject be buried. Piers Morgan recently claimed on TV that Farage’s political career was in tatters and pointed out the fiasco of the lies that Farage has come out with to deflect journalists’ scorn. “This £5m bung he took from this crypto tycoon… He still can’t get his story straight about why. Originally it was for security, then a reward for Brexit, now he says he can spend it all on Ferraris – like all men of the people would say,” he said recently.
Britain is not quite like America. It is still believed by many in the UK that politicians should be held accountable not only for their time in office but also for their private antics. And for Farage to be given such a large amount of cash, simply as a gift, a matter of days before becoming an MP for the first time ever in his political career, he is being held truly to account by the fourth estate, which has generated a debate now in the UK about the ethics of PMs receiving cash or even having second jobs.
The list of rules and regulations which Farage has broken as an MP is too long to list. But receiving this amount of cash and trying to hide it, then lying about it, has blown up in the Reform UK leader’s face, with some even speculating that this is his Icarus moment. His enemies, of course, claimed that a recent by-election was a massive defeat for his party due to the scandal, which was probably exaggerated, but to some extent it is certainly true that if Farage’s support was to have surged even further, guaranteeing him a majority of MP seats in the next general election, it is this incident – and the character of the man surrounding it – which has made its mark. There is a very real debate now being curdled by commentators and political hacks about MPs’ incomes and transparency, and whether an MP under any circumstances at all should receive cash donations, with many claiming now that Farage’s investigation by the British parliament is going to rule against him. And it has all come about because of Farage’s lies.
Yet one element to the crypto bung story which is emerging is how Farage’s golden touch and special relationship he had with the British media is now wrecked for ever, as nothing insults a journalist more than a politician who refuses to answer questions. In Farage’s case, it’s worse. He makes no effort to hide his loathing of the British press and tries on live TV to whisper “no one cares, except the media”, as though journalists are like – to paraphrase a former Moroccan king – rats held in a basket which the owner shakes every now and again to amuse himself. Farage literally thinks of journalists as annoying louts who are often useful but should not be respected. He suffers from the Diana syndrome in that he spends nearly all his time manipulating the press and profiteering from their disproportionate coverage that they give him (given that his party only holds a handful of seats in the British parliament), while constantly complaining and whining to the same journalists that he is being hounded and is the victim of an elaborate ruse. The British press have been enormously kind and sympathetic to Farage in recent years, despite his persecution complex, and have been responsible for his success in many ways, but the recent scandal over the crypto cash has shown how easily he can piss in their soup. It is hard to imagine how he will restore his relationship with them to its former glory.
The £5 million donation and its cover-up have revealed to the whole of the UK who Farage really is – a politician who has uniquely placed himself in the last 20 years in a position whereby he is being funded by wealthy donors, leading some to speculate that his real worth is closer to £20 to £30 million. Certainly, questions buzzing around the Westminster village focus on his personal wealth and how much money he has taken in recent years. Some wonder how long the British political system can accommodate his own unique structure of Reform UK, which is actually a private company designed in every sense to rake in money, openly or in the dark confines of private rooms above pubs. Even money that Reform crowd-funded to supposedly investigate Pakistani rape gangs has not been returned to supporters, after it transpired that Farage decided not to go ahead with it. Was he paid off to halt his plan to go ahead with an extensive probe? Is everything about Farage venal and entirely coin-operated? Will he, once he becomes PM, push through new laws which favour crypto operators like the one in Thailand? Of course. Should we be surprised that he has already lobbied to block new UK laws on crypto which would harm his backer?
It would seem that Farage’s entire persona is about making fast cash and using his political power to do so, which is really the crux of why so many Brits are uncomfortable about the crypto cash scandal. How can someone so openly corruptible become a PM, and what would that mean even for Reform’s policies? Could voters trust Farage to keep any of his election promises? Would he just sell off the NHS to Trump’s cronies and become a billionaire in the first 100 days in office? The crypto donor scandal has become so huge now that Farage is really beginning to feel the heat and understand the implications, as one of the consequences of a parliamentary investigation going against him is that it might insist on a full disclosure of all his financial transactions going back years. And when that happens, the entire country will see who is really in control of Nigel Farage and where he is taking the country – all for the single purpose of filling his own pockets. Farage has a number of important supporters in the deep state, or rather his wealthy backers do, so it will be interesting to see how far they will go to defend him and dampen this extraordinary scandal which refuses to expire. Parliamentary investigations probing him for graft are nothing new to Farage, who the European Parliament accused of pocketing money before, while his common-law wife – who was once a cocktail waitress in Strasbourg when she was discovered by Godfrey Bloom – has also been accused of pocketing large sums of cash by illegal means via a Brussels-based think tank. The theme keeps repeating itself. Dirty money. Political favours. Lies. Cover-ups. Investigations.
The only surprise of that particular period when Farage was investigated while an MEP was how unfazed he was about having his salary suspended for a number of months. Now we know why.
