‘Mr Brexit’ Nigel Farage relinquishes role as Europe’s ‘pantomime villain’
- Britain's loudest Eurosceptic Nigel Farage is counting down the hours before his country leaves the European Union
- ‘Mr Brexit’ is retreating from frontline politics, but plans to make himself heard
After more than 20 years, Nigel Farage is clearing out his office in the European Parliament.
“I’ll miss the drama,” he says, the room dotted with cardboard boxes, Union Jacks, and various knick-knacks on his desk.
But the 55-year-old Englishman says he certainly won’t miss Brussels, home to the many European Union institutions his country is soon to leave – a feat that has been his life’s work.
“There are very few people in life, particularly in politics, that achieve their dream. And in many ways I have,” he says.
So where does his dream go next? More strictly controlled migration, and a geopolitical and trade pivot from the EU to the commonwealth countries of the former British Empire.
It would be a radical shift, close to half of British exports currently land in the EU. But ever-jovial Farage is unfazed.
“I’ll miss being the pantomime villain,” he says of his departure from Brussels. Farage is a man who began his career as a political outsider, and is ending it triumphantly as Mr Brexit personified.
The former financial trader spearheaded the rise of the right-wing UK Independence Party (UKIP) from the early 1990s, as one of its founding members.
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He and UKIP sailed apparently unscathed through several scandals about MEPs’ expenses, accusations of racism and sexism, infighting, and Farage’s alleged affairs.
The party won big in the 2015 elections, but Farage resigned as UKIP leader in 2016 after the Brexit referendum delivered the results he so dearly wanted: a majority for “leave”.
He stayed on as a member of EU parliament, a post he first secured in 1999, and remained a regular fixture in British media.
Then, in the run up to last year’s EU polls, Farage founded the Brexit party.
After Friday’s celebrations marking Britain’s official departure at 11pm London time, he’ll retreat from politics, he says.
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“Unless Boris Johnson makes a huge mess of it,” he adds.
Farage is no fan of the British prime minister, despite the fact that Johnson is set to make the former UKIP leader’s dreams come true on Friday. Both larger-than-life Eurosceptics, the pair have clashed in the past.
They haven’t spoken any time recently, he says. “Not directly.”
Farage will be watching the next 11 months of negotiations on future relations very closely and by no means plans to retreat from public life.
“I’ll be writing, speaking, commentating, broadcasting,” he explains of his plans for the future.
Can he understand the anxieties of EU citizens living in Britain, worried about what the future brings? “I’ve not met one,” he claims. “Including my wife.” Kirsten Mehr holds a German passport, as do their two children.
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As for the EU, he believes Brexit will be “the first brick out of the wall” helping to scale back the European project. Integration should never have gone as far as it did.
“They’re building an empire,” he says, “And people don't want it.
“Does he see a difference between colonisation and joining a political alliance as Britain did in 1973? “The fact is that the EU is the master and we are the servant,” he says.
Brexit is part of a wider shift, Farage argues. “There is a debate going on … Globalism versus nationalism is the crude way of putting it.”
“And I think the nationalist debate is winning,” he says.
Whether other EU member states choose to follow Britain’s lead remains to be seen. Whatever happens, you can be sure Mr Brexit will have something to say.
