Nigel Farage, the well-known comic turn in the European Parliament, has suddenly come from nowhere to become the best-known and most popular British politician in America. This is completely new territory for him, but having finally left the United Kingdom Independence Party (which had some trouble finding another leader) he clearly has time on his hands, and he looks absolutely delighted to have been handed an unexpected chance for a new life as an international statesman.
He is introduced on American TV as ‘the leader of Brexit‘. This is very far from the truth. Brexit was led by Boris Johnson, mainly, and other Conservative politicians. Farage has failed to be elected to Parliament 5 times. Nobody in government wants to know his opinion, and he has no access to policy-making. His only formal position is as a Member of the European Parliament, something he clearly treats as a joke. The official campaign to leave the European Union refused to have anything to do with him, and even now that he has the ear of Donald Trump, the British government makes it clear that they are not going to change their mind. But he has a small new project. ‘I took Britain out of Europe,’ he declares to cheering crowds in America. ‘Now I want to take Europe out of Europe!’
And there is an immediate response from a nervous Europe. Norbert Hofer, the failed far-right candidate for the Presidency of Austria, made a point of warning Nigel Farage that ‘He should not interfere in Austria’s internal politics.’ But as the wind of populism blows ever harder across Europe, is there any reason to think he is going to stop?
The American response to Farage is weird. The kind of uneducated white American nationalists who are the core Trump voters clearly don’t know what the European Union is or what Brexit was about. Alex Jones, the leader of the ‘Infowars’ internet channel that is their favourite source of information, told them in October that ‘Russia was pulling out of the European Union’. But for some reason, they just love Nigel Farage.
Donald Trump has suggested that Farage should become British Ambassador to the United States, but that demonstrates that Trump doesn’t really understand what ambassadors are. What Farage has become instead, in a very unlikely development, is a de facto international ambassador for Trump and the enthusiastic demographic he represents.
He has discovered that he can get standing ovations from large crowds in America, something he has never experienced in Britain or in the European Parliament, where he is more likely to get his microphone switched off. The Trump supporters who cheer him on plainly have only the most approximate idea who he is, but the word ‘Brexit’ has become part of the Trump brand, and Farage is a fast learner. He has realised that mentioning Ronald Reagan and getting emotional about ‘freedom’ is enough to get the crowds going.
In addition to this he has one enormous advantage over the Americans in Trump’s entourage. In Britain Farage is an amusing raconteur: the kind of man who is at home in a pub, telling stories with a pint of beer in his hand. That is why people like him: he is an unpretentious everyman. In America, he is transformed into Cicero. Like Donald Trump, he talks without notes, riding the moment, live to camera. But whereas Trump talks in a kind of semi-literate baby talk, often reduced to repeating each phrase several times, Farage speaks not just in whole sentences, but in paragraphs. He has been doing this for a long time, remember. He can get up and deliver a well-structured speech, easily and with a smile: and in Trumpland this makes him look like a genius.
He is still an amateur, though, and in Britain he is a kind of Monty Python politician. People like him, they laugh at his jokes, but nobody takes him completely seriously. One reason for this is that he has no policies. His one idea was that Britain should leave the European Union, and although he has finally seen this come about, his own contribution to the result was questionable. Now that his one political crusade is over, what is left?
But in America, miraculously, they suddenly want to know his opinions about every aspect of American and international politics. British and European politics, something he does know something about, are of no particular interest, so he finds himself being asked about China or Pakistan or whatever the American media circus happens to be focused on that day. He rises to the occasion, says the first thing that comes into his head, and the television hosts react as if he is Henry Kissinger and Winston Churchill combined.
The new currency in politics is celebrity. Silvio Berlusconi was a celebrity politician, but had other qualities too. Nicolas Sarkozy tried rule by celebrity in France ten years ago, but the world wasn’t ready for it: when his policies failed his grinning and waving to the camera suddenly looked grotesque, and he was dumped after one term in favour of the non-celebrity Hollande. Trump has demonstrated that things have now changed, at least in the English-speaking world, and it is this new tide of celebrity politics that has raised Farage to his new height. The proof of this is that Farage’s appearances on American television have now made him a different kind of star in Britain too. This week there is a by-election in a rural constituency, and although no longer at the head of UKIP, he went along to support the UKIP candidate. This routine visit became a celebrity event, with large crowds turning out to get a glimpse of Farage, now gleaming with fairy dust, while the cameras followed him everywhere. It is not possible to tell at this point how successful Donald Trump’s bizarre presidency will be, but all the signs are that those associated with him in these early days will be sharing the voyage. So it looks as if Nigel Farage is in for an exciting few years.
