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The Purple Revolution: The Year That Changed Everything
How did Farage persuade Reckless and Carswell to ditch the Conservatives? Would UKIP ever do a deal with another party? How have three near-death experiences shaped Farage's politics? How does Nigel feel about controversial kippers and their high-profile gaffes? Twenty-one years after its formation as a single-policy protest party, and on the eve of what promises to be one of the closest, most exciting general elections in recent memory, the truly remarkable rise of UKIP and its charismatic leader, Nigel Farage, have caused nothing less than a tectonic shift in British politics. And the aftershocks are being felt far beyond the corridors of power in Whitehall... This book, written by the man who orchestrated that extraordinary rise, is not an autobiography, but rather the untold story of the journey UKIP has travelled under Farage's leadership, from the icy fringes of British politics all the way to Westminster, where it is poised to claim the popular vote. In it, he reveals for the first time exactly how, over the last few years, Farage and his supporters have ushered in a very English secretly courting MPs right under the nose of the political establishment, in the tearooms and wine bars of the House of Lords. With characteristic wit and candour, Farage takes us beyond the caricature of the beerdrinking, chain-smoking adventurer in Jermyn Street double-cuffs as he describes the values that underpin his own from successful City trader to (very) outspoken critic of the European Union and champion of Britain's right to govern itself.
205 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 17, 2015
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About the author
Nigel Farage
9 books39 followersFarage began his career in 1982 as a commodities trader at the London Metal Exchange and years later ran his own metals brokerage firm.
He left a successful career behind to go into politics after the Conservative party signed the Maastricht Treaty, which advocated “ever closer union” between European nations. He became a founding member of UKIP in 1993 and set about campaigning for Britain’s EU withdrawal. In 2014, under Farage’s leadership, UKIP came first in the European election topping the poll in the UK with 4.5 million votes and in doing so becoming the first political party since 1906 to win a national election that was not the Labour or Conservative parties.
This successful result eventually forced the Conservative party to hold a referendum on European Union membership. In June 2016, Farage was a leading figure in the campaign to leave. This gained him the name “Mr Brexit” by Republican Presidential candidate Donald J Trump, whom he supported at a rally on the campaign trail. Nigel Farage was one of the very few that predicted that Donald Trump would win the presidential elections and was the first foreign politician to meet the newly elected President in Trump Tower just days after his historic win.
With it seeming he had won the day, Nigel stepped back from frontline politics, providing political analysis for Fox News in America and presenting a daily show on LBC radio and writing for the Daily Telegraph. In early 2019, he was forced back into Westminster politics in order to stop the Brexit betrayal, founding his new ‘Brexit Party’ to win the May elections in just six weeks of campaigning. This made Nigel the only man in British political history to win two national elections with two different parties.
With Brexit finally secured it looks as though 27 years of hard work has paid off. However, Nigel continues to hold the feet of the ruling Conservative party to the fire as a campaigner and political commentator across British and American media.
He left a successful career behind to go into politics after the Conservative party signed the Maastricht Treaty, which advocated “ever closer union” between European nations. He became a founding member of UKIP in 1993 and set about campaigning for Britain’s EU withdrawal. In 2014, under Farage’s leadership, UKIP came first in the European election topping the poll in the UK with 4.5 million votes and in doing so becoming the first political party since 1906 to win a national election that was not the Labour or Conservative parties.
This successful result eventually forced the Conservative party to hold a referendum on European Union membership. In June 2016, Farage was a leading figure in the campaign to leave. This gained him the name “Mr Brexit” by Republican Presidential candidate Donald J Trump, whom he supported at a rally on the campaign trail. Nigel Farage was one of the very few that predicted that Donald Trump would win the presidential elections and was the first foreign politician to meet the newly elected President in Trump Tower just days after his historic win.
With it seeming he had won the day, Nigel stepped back from frontline politics, providing political analysis for Fox News in America and presenting a daily show on LBC radio and writing for the Daily Telegraph. In early 2019, he was forced back into Westminster politics in order to stop the Brexit betrayal, founding his new ‘Brexit Party’ to win the May elections in just six weeks of campaigning. This made Nigel the only man in British political history to win two national elections with two different parties.
With Brexit finally secured it looks as though 27 years of hard work has paid off. However, Nigel continues to hold the feet of the ruling Conservative party to the fire as a campaigner and political commentator across British and American media.
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April 30, 2015
I have to admit to an odd kind of fascination with UKIP leader Nigel Farage. I despise the way he goes about his politics but for all that, the man is definitely interesting. With his carefully crafted, paper-thin, man-of-the-people gimmick and his undoubted sense of both humour, and of the ridiculous, he’s livened up British politics. True, his making things more entertaining may have been at the expense of proper, grown-up discussions about complex matters, but he’s good on the telly. The BBC certainly think so, giving him disproportionately huge coverage and a seemingly permanent Question Time seat despite, he repeatedly claims, doing everything they can to ignore and undermine him and his party.
There’s a Farageian credibility gap there. What’s actually going on isn’t always exactly what Farage claims. That’s why I used to think he was a liar. Now I think he’s a bullshitter. In his 1986 essay ‘On Bullshit’, Princeton philosopher Harry Frankfurt explained that liars care about what the truth is, in order to conceal it, whereas a bullshitter isn’t especially bothered, and may even tell the truth. Their only real interest either way is in trying to impress their audience and further their own agenda or reputation. Obviously, all politicians do this to some extent, but Farage does it so flagrantly (see his unsupported-by-any-statistics-anywhere claim that 75% of British laws are made in Brussels) while, out of the other side of his mouth declaring himself to be an honest straight-shooter.
UKIP are often accused of being backward-looking and nostalgic for a Britain that used to be – or more accurately, a Britain that never really was. Farage certainly displays plenty of that here. He had a cracking time at grammar school, therefore the solution to all of Britain’s education problems is to be bring back grammar schools. He also didn’t bother with going to university “to faff around for three years” (so shows contempt for them in general, unless he’s bigging up the credentials of UKIP appointees) and he had a fine old time as a City trader – a business he followed his father into – so everything was wonderful in the City, back in the 1980s. Of course, it’s all rubbish now.
He’s fond of mocking his political opponents for never having a ‘proper job’ (Nick Clegg was actually a journalist and Ed Miliband has done some work teaching economics but, whatever) while he’s in touch with the working man because while in the City he got up a bit early, put in a few hours’ work and then at midday commenced a 12 hour (yes, really) lunch known as ‘the Farage’. Try doing that every day and see how far you get. He makes a big thing about being an outsider and not part of the ‘political class’. But by the time of the 2015 General Election, there will be people voting who were two years old when Farage first became an MEP way back in 1999. He’s held elected office longer than either David Cameron (2001) or Miliband (2005).
Farage notes how much of his life is spent on the Eurostar to Brussels. But between 2009 and 2014 (these figures aren’t in his book, obviously, and in fact precious few actual facts and figures are, just lots of opinions) he participated in just under 43% of European Parliament votes and says his main achievement in his first five years as an MEP (1999 to 2004) was “a few bits and pieces such as fishing.” Quite what that means, I’m not sure. But that’s exactly what he says. He was, for three years, a member of the European Parliament’s Fisheries Committee. And he showed up for exactly one meeting – of a possible 42. Again, he doesn’t mention that. In 2013, on a vote similar to UKIP’s current policy of giving priority to local fishermen who catch in a sustainable way, he didn’t bother to vote. Again, that doesn’t merit a mention.
Of course, Farage’s time as an MEP hasn’t been primarily about improving things for the people who voted him in and sent him, on a handsome salary and with a whopping great expense account, to Brussels. It’s about making some crudely funny speeches that ended up being viewed lots of times on YouTube. Most famously, his 2010 rant at EU President Herman Van Rompuy, comparing him to a “low grade bank clerk” led to a €4000 fine and an apology – to bank clerks. OK, I’ll admit it - that was pretty funny.
Farage is clearly very pleased about all this, as he is about many of his anecdotes. Here’s one, in full, from the night of his second TV debate with Clegg in 2014: “Backstage in the corridor, the two of us rubbed shoulders as we prepared to leave. ‘I suppose you’re going to a private club again, now’ Clegg said to me, referring to the last debate when I had raced off to the Reform Club. ‘No Nick, I’m not. But last time I went to the Reform Club, which, unless I am very much mistaken, is the birthplace of the Liberal Party.’ I cackled and walked off.” Again, it’s amusing stuff, especially when the easily and widely-reviled Clegg is the victim, but this and several more of Farage’s stories really miss that one last, closing line – ‘needless to say, I had the last laugh’ - just like Steve Coogan’s fictional character Alan Partridge repeatedly does in his fictional autobiography ‘Bouncing Back’.
Throughout the book, Farage continually states things as if they are cold, hard facts, even when they’re simply his opinion, or when they’re simply not true. Early on, he discusses Sanya-Jeet Thandi, formerly a rising young UKIP star who very publicly quit the party in May 2014. Farage notes his long, personal association with her, in a fairly confusing way. “I had known her since she was twelve… I had known her since she was a teenager…” Now, I’m not trying to suggest Farage doesn’t know how old a teenager is but I am suggesting his book is sloppily written and poorly edited. Farage writes that “Sanya issued a statement to the press saying that while a member of UKIP she had been subject to racism. I was mystified. I could not understand why she had said it. I was certain she had not been the victim of racism.”
Unfortunately, she didn’t actually even say that. Just ten minutes of Googling articles written about her, interviews with her, and pieces written by her, shows that she quit the party because she felt it was using racist tactics in its European election campaign. She did NOT say she’d been subjected to racism. So that leaves us with three conclusions: 1)Farage is bullshitting 2) he can’t remember simple, basic facts or 3) his book is so shoddily fact-checked that it’s simply filled up with whatever happened to have been on his mind at the time and no one bothered to check if any of it was true.
In fairness, I should point out that Farage deserves a fair chunk of credit for his successes – if not nearly as much as he sometimes tries to claim. UKIP are a far more professional outfit than they used to be and given that he’s obviously so controlling and so much of their success is tied to his cult of personality, that credit definitely belongs to him.
At times he even talks a great deal of sense. The European Union IS grotesquely wasteful and ridiculously bureaucratic. His reasoning for why he rejects any alliance with Marine Le Pen’s National Front is clear and sensible. He calls former Tory leader Michael Howard “ghastly” and rightly labels the EU’s transparently anti-democratic rebranding of their failed constitution as the Lisbon Treaty “disgraceful.” And it was.
Of course, his wild claims, massive over-simplifications and outright bullshit do a fine job of undermining the few times he genuinely talks sense. His claim that Britain in the mid-70s “was more left-wing than Soviet Russia” makes a nice soundbite but any halfway decent student of modern European history could disprove it with ease. Incredibly (and I mean that in the sense of ‘not credibly’) he even claims that in August 2013, a poster in Parliament Square saying ‘UKIP says no to war in Syria’ and UKIP hitting “a nerve with not only the British public, but also a number of backbenchers who, yet again, found themselves agreeing with our policies” were responsible for the government defeat in a vote on military action. Funnily enough, that loss (285-272) may have had something, just something, to do with the 220 Labour MPs who said ‘no’.
He even manages to turn the tragic story of the pilot who was injured in his 2010 plane crash into an opportunity to do a little scaremongering. Having his life threatened by the now badly injured and obviously disturbed former pilot who claimed to own a gun, Farage writes that during the ensuing trial in 2011 he “looked up how many mental health patients kill. It turned out that at the time there were about 120 people murdered each year.”
Well, those figures actually came out in 2013, being splashed about by the Sun and at the time, experts and charities working in mental health criticised the sensationalistic reporting and pointed out that people with serious mental health conditions are ten times likelier to be victims of violent crime than perpetrators of it. Again, Farage gets the details wrong and focuses only on the most negative interpretation. He also ignores the fact that from 2004 to 2013 (the ten years the Sun took those numbers from) there were an average of just over 700 recorded murders per year in the UK. Clearly, Farage considers people with serious mental health problems to be both dangerous and handy tools for a bit of political posturing. Interesting then, that his party’s 2015 election manifesto pledges to “fight the stigma around mental illness.”
Amusingly, Farage, who mocks “Cameron’s pathetic desire to be popular” and continually calls his political opponents names (“fools” is a clear favourite) writes several times that he hates the kind of negative campaigning that goes on in the US. He also singles out Barack Obama’s former campaign advisor David Axelrod (now supposedly, but actually not really, working for Miliband) as a pioneer of negative campaigning. Considering Axelrod is credited as one of the architects of the hugely successful and extremely positive ‘Change’ campaign in 2008, and negative campaigning dates back to at least the nineteenth century, that seems a stretch, even for a bullshitter.
For someone who hates negative campaigns, he’s very proud of his influence in the Irish electorate’s 2008 rejection of the Lisbon Treaty. He gleefully recalls his role, along with other Eurosceptics, in publishing an eight page booklet playing on Catholic fears and prejudice. “It [the booklet] also featured a graphic that really upset Brussels, as I knew it would. The graphic was a syringe, next to which was written: ‘Can you be sure that under EU law euthanasia will not be introduced?’ Claiming a hefty chunk of the ‘No’ vote credit with that tacky bit of scaremongering, he completely neglects to mention another of that’s booklet’s warnings – that the treaty would open Ireland up to Turkish immigrants. It wouldn’t. And the specific targeting of a particular nationality doesn’t help his ‘I’m not a racist, you know’ credentials.
Obviously, Farage loves his scaremongering, as demonstrated by those 2014 European election posters implying that hundreds of millions of foreigners are coming after YOUR job, and his party’s October 2014 poster campaign in South Yorkshire’s PCC election (which UKIP didn’t win) exploiting the suffering of victims of a horrifying sexual abuse scandal. He also likes the ‘fact’ his ‘brand’ is so popular in the United States. Although he seems to gauge this mostly from the fact he’s been a guest on Fox News – the channel that gave us a terrorism ‘expert’ explaining how the whole of Birmingham in non-white, and consulting some Bible bashing hobo from ‘Duck Dynasty’ on radical Islam.
Nigel Farage likes drinking. You probably already know this, but the sheer amount of times he goes on about it in this book makes reading it feel a bit like scrolling through a 19-year-old’s Facebook page. We get the message early on, but Nigel feels the need to keep on and on about it. He does concede that “on a bad day, UKIP can look so blokeish – and I am as much to blame for that as anyone” before explaining, in what comes across as a very open and honest way, the damage Godfrey Bloom did to the party’s image with his ‘sluts’ comment and generally ridiculous 2013 party conference behaviour that saw him quickly pushed out of the party. Although, of course, he then tries to pretend that “the real long-term consequence of the incident is that you end up in a situation where politicians are so scared of causing offence that everyone says the same thing, which means they are effectively all saying nothing.” This is of course, gibberish. Calling female journalists ‘sluts’ and having an open and honest dialogue are not quite the same thing.
For the 2013 local elections he notes that UKIP “fielded a record number of candidates”. That sounds impressive, until you realise it used to be UKIP policy to only stand in elections for Westminster or the European Parliament. Of course they fielded a record number if the old record was zero. Again, the supposedly straight-talking anti-politician distorts and spins his way through his own story.
Speaking of elections, the last three chapters (almost a third of the book) detail Farage’s plans for South Thanet, the defections and elections of Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless, and some thoughts on the upcoming general election.
Pity the poor voters of South Thanet. So keen are his opponents, especially the Conservatives, to ‘behead then UKIP snake’ by beating the leader that the constituency has been flooded with Tory activists and politicians, making the place look untidy and getting on the locals’ nerves. Farage claims to know the area well, and writes clearly on his strategy for winning the seat. There’s nothing particularly innovative in what he has to say, and his aim of justifying and explaining party policies in relevant, local terms is basic, sensible political strategy. Of course, Farage being Farage he strays into bullshittery. “I reckon we have a good chance of continuing to dominate Thanet District Council” he boasts. Dominate, you say? A quick look at the ‘Your Councillors’ section of Thanet District Council’s website reveals that of 56 council seats, UKIP have, erm, two. Yes, two.
It gets better “in May 2013, of eight seats on Kent County Council, we won seven, and the Labour candidate [Will] Scobie had the other.” Sounds impressive, eh? But again, a quick look at the relevant council website shows Farage is, again, wrong. UKIP didn’t win seven seats, they won seventeen. That’s a good result, isn’t it? Oh, wait. The Conservatives won 45. And there weren’t eight seats up for grabs, there were 84.
In detailing the defections of Conservative MPs Carswell and Reckless, Farage consistently overstates the importance of having two UKIP MPs. Presenting it as a massive change in politics, he undermines his own case by playing up how popular both men are in their own constituencies. Yes, both resulting by-elections were wins for UKIP but both were also wins for the incumbent candidate. Farage is especially gushing about the “principled and honourable” Carswell, a man who memorably, in the great MP expenses scandal of 2009, charged the taxpayer for a £650 love seat and was one of many MPs who ‘flipped’ their second home. That practice has since been banned.
As he tells the cloak-and-dagger tale of the two defections it’s clear just how in control, and controlling, Farage is. Keeping everything secret from even the highest ranks of his party, his dominating influence, and sense of theatre are obvious. As is his paranoia. I’m sure he’s right that the Conservatives were furious at Carswell’s defection and were desperate to stop anyone else jumping ship but “it was certainly our suspicion that everyone at UKIP HQ – from me to the press office to the strategists – had their mobiles tapped” are the words of a tinfoil-hatted conspiracist. His tales of secret meetings and swapping pay-as-you-go phones are like something an overly imaginative eight-year-old might tell.
In telling the story of those two by-elections, he takes the usual swipes at his political opponents and gives us the most unfortunate line in the entire book – “All of the Loonies vote UKIP.” Now, it would be terribly unfair to take something out of context and try to make a political point with it, so I’ll add that he was talking about candidates and supporters of the Monster Raving Loony Party. Still, Farage did say “all of the Loonies vote UKIP.”
Overall, Farage takes surprisingly few shots at the EU, or at explaining exactly what is so ruinous in British membership, for large sections of the book. In his final chapter, he does highlight the EU’s closure of Kent’s Kingsnorth power station under the EU Large Combustion Plants Directive. He doesn’t, of course, explain what that is, so I will. It’s a directive from 2001 that essentially gave older, fossil-fuel burning power plants until 2007 to reduce emissions or operate at reduced capacity. If still unable to reduce their emissions, they would be closed by the end of 2015. Damn that EU, trying to save humanity from cooking itself.
After setting out his hopes for some kind of Conservative, UKIP, DUP deal, and taking a superb shot at Clegg – “I have no desire to swap the short-term privilege of a ministerial car for everything that we have fought for” – he rules out being a member of a formal coalition. “Apart from anything else, most of the people sitting around that Cabinet table are ghastly – I do not want to be with them and I am sure they feel the same way about me.”
His price for this deal he’s looking for? An in/out referendum, in 2015, on EU membership. That sounds fair enough but of course, it wouldn’t be Farage if there wasn’t some kind of jiggery-pokery going on. One of his four, more detailed points is that EU citizens living in the UK would be barred from voting. That, of course, would most likely be a few million or so votes in favour of EU membership. Dressing it up as a question of fairness and letting the British decide Britain’s future, sounds reasonable enough but it’s also a neat little bit of Gerrymandering, to UKIP’s benefit. He also notes this could mean a “battle with the European Court of Justice – but so be it.” I’m sure he’d love just such a thing. It would obviously delay the referendum and give him plenty of time to tell everyone how ‘Europe’ is trying to stop us even having a referendum. For an anti-politician who isn’t part of the ‘political class’ Farage clearly knows a fair few tricks.
And the best trick of all – his suggestion for the wording of the all-important question: ‘Do you wish to be a free, independent sovereign democracy?’ As blatantly leading referendum questions go, it’s not all that far away from the one Pakistan’s President Zia -ul-Haq asked in 1984 (and I’m paraphrasing a little here) ‘President Zia-ul-Haq is making Pakistan more Islamic. Do you agree with Islam?’ Claiming a 98.5% ‘yes’ vote, the President, who had installed himself after a military coup in 1977, used the results to justify another five year term in office.
Again Farage, so at pains to present himself as an ordinary, honest bloke is just as much of a politician as the rest of them. His affable image and his ‘outsider’ façade are just that – a façade. He wrote this book presumably to help win him some votes. Sadly, for all its entertaining qualities, it’s a pretty decent insight into how he actually thinks and operates. That it’s riddled with errors, distortions, half-truths and bullshitting and generally feels like it was thrown together in a weekend, carelessly and with no real attention to detail, is probably appropriate.
There’s a Farageian credibility gap there. What’s actually going on isn’t always exactly what Farage claims. That’s why I used to think he was a liar. Now I think he’s a bullshitter. In his 1986 essay ‘On Bullshit’, Princeton philosopher Harry Frankfurt explained that liars care about what the truth is, in order to conceal it, whereas a bullshitter isn’t especially bothered, and may even tell the truth. Their only real interest either way is in trying to impress their audience and further their own agenda or reputation. Obviously, all politicians do this to some extent, but Farage does it so flagrantly (see his unsupported-by-any-statistics-anywhere claim that 75% of British laws are made in Brussels) while, out of the other side of his mouth declaring himself to be an honest straight-shooter.
UKIP are often accused of being backward-looking and nostalgic for a Britain that used to be – or more accurately, a Britain that never really was. Farage certainly displays plenty of that here. He had a cracking time at grammar school, therefore the solution to all of Britain’s education problems is to be bring back grammar schools. He also didn’t bother with going to university “to faff around for three years” (so shows contempt for them in general, unless he’s bigging up the credentials of UKIP appointees) and he had a fine old time as a City trader – a business he followed his father into – so everything was wonderful in the City, back in the 1980s. Of course, it’s all rubbish now.
He’s fond of mocking his political opponents for never having a ‘proper job’ (Nick Clegg was actually a journalist and Ed Miliband has done some work teaching economics but, whatever) while he’s in touch with the working man because while in the City he got up a bit early, put in a few hours’ work and then at midday commenced a 12 hour (yes, really) lunch known as ‘the Farage’. Try doing that every day and see how far you get. He makes a big thing about being an outsider and not part of the ‘political class’. But by the time of the 2015 General Election, there will be people voting who were two years old when Farage first became an MEP way back in 1999. He’s held elected office longer than either David Cameron (2001) or Miliband (2005).
Farage notes how much of his life is spent on the Eurostar to Brussels. But between 2009 and 2014 (these figures aren’t in his book, obviously, and in fact precious few actual facts and figures are, just lots of opinions) he participated in just under 43% of European Parliament votes and says his main achievement in his first five years as an MEP (1999 to 2004) was “a few bits and pieces such as fishing.” Quite what that means, I’m not sure. But that’s exactly what he says. He was, for three years, a member of the European Parliament’s Fisheries Committee. And he showed up for exactly one meeting – of a possible 42. Again, he doesn’t mention that. In 2013, on a vote similar to UKIP’s current policy of giving priority to local fishermen who catch in a sustainable way, he didn’t bother to vote. Again, that doesn’t merit a mention.
Of course, Farage’s time as an MEP hasn’t been primarily about improving things for the people who voted him in and sent him, on a handsome salary and with a whopping great expense account, to Brussels. It’s about making some crudely funny speeches that ended up being viewed lots of times on YouTube. Most famously, his 2010 rant at EU President Herman Van Rompuy, comparing him to a “low grade bank clerk” led to a €4000 fine and an apology – to bank clerks. OK, I’ll admit it - that was pretty funny.
Farage is clearly very pleased about all this, as he is about many of his anecdotes. Here’s one, in full, from the night of his second TV debate with Clegg in 2014: “Backstage in the corridor, the two of us rubbed shoulders as we prepared to leave. ‘I suppose you’re going to a private club again, now’ Clegg said to me, referring to the last debate when I had raced off to the Reform Club. ‘No Nick, I’m not. But last time I went to the Reform Club, which, unless I am very much mistaken, is the birthplace of the Liberal Party.’ I cackled and walked off.” Again, it’s amusing stuff, especially when the easily and widely-reviled Clegg is the victim, but this and several more of Farage’s stories really miss that one last, closing line – ‘needless to say, I had the last laugh’ - just like Steve Coogan’s fictional character Alan Partridge repeatedly does in his fictional autobiography ‘Bouncing Back’.
Throughout the book, Farage continually states things as if they are cold, hard facts, even when they’re simply his opinion, or when they’re simply not true. Early on, he discusses Sanya-Jeet Thandi, formerly a rising young UKIP star who very publicly quit the party in May 2014. Farage notes his long, personal association with her, in a fairly confusing way. “I had known her since she was twelve… I had known her since she was a teenager…” Now, I’m not trying to suggest Farage doesn’t know how old a teenager is but I am suggesting his book is sloppily written and poorly edited. Farage writes that “Sanya issued a statement to the press saying that while a member of UKIP she had been subject to racism. I was mystified. I could not understand why she had said it. I was certain she had not been the victim of racism.”
Unfortunately, she didn’t actually even say that. Just ten minutes of Googling articles written about her, interviews with her, and pieces written by her, shows that she quit the party because she felt it was using racist tactics in its European election campaign. She did NOT say she’d been subjected to racism. So that leaves us with three conclusions: 1)Farage is bullshitting 2) he can’t remember simple, basic facts or 3) his book is so shoddily fact-checked that it’s simply filled up with whatever happened to have been on his mind at the time and no one bothered to check if any of it was true.
In fairness, I should point out that Farage deserves a fair chunk of credit for his successes – if not nearly as much as he sometimes tries to claim. UKIP are a far more professional outfit than they used to be and given that he’s obviously so controlling and so much of their success is tied to his cult of personality, that credit definitely belongs to him.
At times he even talks a great deal of sense. The European Union IS grotesquely wasteful and ridiculously bureaucratic. His reasoning for why he rejects any alliance with Marine Le Pen’s National Front is clear and sensible. He calls former Tory leader Michael Howard “ghastly” and rightly labels the EU’s transparently anti-democratic rebranding of their failed constitution as the Lisbon Treaty “disgraceful.” And it was.
Of course, his wild claims, massive over-simplifications and outright bullshit do a fine job of undermining the few times he genuinely talks sense. His claim that Britain in the mid-70s “was more left-wing than Soviet Russia” makes a nice soundbite but any halfway decent student of modern European history could disprove it with ease. Incredibly (and I mean that in the sense of ‘not credibly’) he even claims that in August 2013, a poster in Parliament Square saying ‘UKIP says no to war in Syria’ and UKIP hitting “a nerve with not only the British public, but also a number of backbenchers who, yet again, found themselves agreeing with our policies” were responsible for the government defeat in a vote on military action. Funnily enough, that loss (285-272) may have had something, just something, to do with the 220 Labour MPs who said ‘no’.
He even manages to turn the tragic story of the pilot who was injured in his 2010 plane crash into an opportunity to do a little scaremongering. Having his life threatened by the now badly injured and obviously disturbed former pilot who claimed to own a gun, Farage writes that during the ensuing trial in 2011 he “looked up how many mental health patients kill. It turned out that at the time there were about 120 people murdered each year.”
Well, those figures actually came out in 2013, being splashed about by the Sun and at the time, experts and charities working in mental health criticised the sensationalistic reporting and pointed out that people with serious mental health conditions are ten times likelier to be victims of violent crime than perpetrators of it. Again, Farage gets the details wrong and focuses only on the most negative interpretation. He also ignores the fact that from 2004 to 2013 (the ten years the Sun took those numbers from) there were an average of just over 700 recorded murders per year in the UK. Clearly, Farage considers people with serious mental health problems to be both dangerous and handy tools for a bit of political posturing. Interesting then, that his party’s 2015 election manifesto pledges to “fight the stigma around mental illness.”
Amusingly, Farage, who mocks “Cameron’s pathetic desire to be popular” and continually calls his political opponents names (“fools” is a clear favourite) writes several times that he hates the kind of negative campaigning that goes on in the US. He also singles out Barack Obama’s former campaign advisor David Axelrod (now supposedly, but actually not really, working for Miliband) as a pioneer of negative campaigning. Considering Axelrod is credited as one of the architects of the hugely successful and extremely positive ‘Change’ campaign in 2008, and negative campaigning dates back to at least the nineteenth century, that seems a stretch, even for a bullshitter.
For someone who hates negative campaigns, he’s very proud of his influence in the Irish electorate’s 2008 rejection of the Lisbon Treaty. He gleefully recalls his role, along with other Eurosceptics, in publishing an eight page booklet playing on Catholic fears and prejudice. “It [the booklet] also featured a graphic that really upset Brussels, as I knew it would. The graphic was a syringe, next to which was written: ‘Can you be sure that under EU law euthanasia will not be introduced?’ Claiming a hefty chunk of the ‘No’ vote credit with that tacky bit of scaremongering, he completely neglects to mention another of that’s booklet’s warnings – that the treaty would open Ireland up to Turkish immigrants. It wouldn’t. And the specific targeting of a particular nationality doesn’t help his ‘I’m not a racist, you know’ credentials.
Obviously, Farage loves his scaremongering, as demonstrated by those 2014 European election posters implying that hundreds of millions of foreigners are coming after YOUR job, and his party’s October 2014 poster campaign in South Yorkshire’s PCC election (which UKIP didn’t win) exploiting the suffering of victims of a horrifying sexual abuse scandal. He also likes the ‘fact’ his ‘brand’ is so popular in the United States. Although he seems to gauge this mostly from the fact he’s been a guest on Fox News – the channel that gave us a terrorism ‘expert’ explaining how the whole of Birmingham in non-white, and consulting some Bible bashing hobo from ‘Duck Dynasty’ on radical Islam.
Nigel Farage likes drinking. You probably already know this, but the sheer amount of times he goes on about it in this book makes reading it feel a bit like scrolling through a 19-year-old’s Facebook page. We get the message early on, but Nigel feels the need to keep on and on about it. He does concede that “on a bad day, UKIP can look so blokeish – and I am as much to blame for that as anyone” before explaining, in what comes across as a very open and honest way, the damage Godfrey Bloom did to the party’s image with his ‘sluts’ comment and generally ridiculous 2013 party conference behaviour that saw him quickly pushed out of the party. Although, of course, he then tries to pretend that “the real long-term consequence of the incident is that you end up in a situation where politicians are so scared of causing offence that everyone says the same thing, which means they are effectively all saying nothing.” This is of course, gibberish. Calling female journalists ‘sluts’ and having an open and honest dialogue are not quite the same thing.
For the 2013 local elections he notes that UKIP “fielded a record number of candidates”. That sounds impressive, until you realise it used to be UKIP policy to only stand in elections for Westminster or the European Parliament. Of course they fielded a record number if the old record was zero. Again, the supposedly straight-talking anti-politician distorts and spins his way through his own story.
Speaking of elections, the last three chapters (almost a third of the book) detail Farage’s plans for South Thanet, the defections and elections of Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless, and some thoughts on the upcoming general election.
Pity the poor voters of South Thanet. So keen are his opponents, especially the Conservatives, to ‘behead then UKIP snake’ by beating the leader that the constituency has been flooded with Tory activists and politicians, making the place look untidy and getting on the locals’ nerves. Farage claims to know the area well, and writes clearly on his strategy for winning the seat. There’s nothing particularly innovative in what he has to say, and his aim of justifying and explaining party policies in relevant, local terms is basic, sensible political strategy. Of course, Farage being Farage he strays into bullshittery. “I reckon we have a good chance of continuing to dominate Thanet District Council” he boasts. Dominate, you say? A quick look at the ‘Your Councillors’ section of Thanet District Council’s website reveals that of 56 council seats, UKIP have, erm, two. Yes, two.
It gets better “in May 2013, of eight seats on Kent County Council, we won seven, and the Labour candidate [Will] Scobie had the other.” Sounds impressive, eh? But again, a quick look at the relevant council website shows Farage is, again, wrong. UKIP didn’t win seven seats, they won seventeen. That’s a good result, isn’t it? Oh, wait. The Conservatives won 45. And there weren’t eight seats up for grabs, there were 84.
In detailing the defections of Conservative MPs Carswell and Reckless, Farage consistently overstates the importance of having two UKIP MPs. Presenting it as a massive change in politics, he undermines his own case by playing up how popular both men are in their own constituencies. Yes, both resulting by-elections were wins for UKIP but both were also wins for the incumbent candidate. Farage is especially gushing about the “principled and honourable” Carswell, a man who memorably, in the great MP expenses scandal of 2009, charged the taxpayer for a £650 love seat and was one of many MPs who ‘flipped’ their second home. That practice has since been banned.
As he tells the cloak-and-dagger tale of the two defections it’s clear just how in control, and controlling, Farage is. Keeping everything secret from even the highest ranks of his party, his dominating influence, and sense of theatre are obvious. As is his paranoia. I’m sure he’s right that the Conservatives were furious at Carswell’s defection and were desperate to stop anyone else jumping ship but “it was certainly our suspicion that everyone at UKIP HQ – from me to the press office to the strategists – had their mobiles tapped” are the words of a tinfoil-hatted conspiracist. His tales of secret meetings and swapping pay-as-you-go phones are like something an overly imaginative eight-year-old might tell.
In telling the story of those two by-elections, he takes the usual swipes at his political opponents and gives us the most unfortunate line in the entire book – “All of the Loonies vote UKIP.” Now, it would be terribly unfair to take something out of context and try to make a political point with it, so I’ll add that he was talking about candidates and supporters of the Monster Raving Loony Party. Still, Farage did say “all of the Loonies vote UKIP.”
Overall, Farage takes surprisingly few shots at the EU, or at explaining exactly what is so ruinous in British membership, for large sections of the book. In his final chapter, he does highlight the EU’s closure of Kent’s Kingsnorth power station under the EU Large Combustion Plants Directive. He doesn’t, of course, explain what that is, so I will. It’s a directive from 2001 that essentially gave older, fossil-fuel burning power plants until 2007 to reduce emissions or operate at reduced capacity. If still unable to reduce their emissions, they would be closed by the end of 2015. Damn that EU, trying to save humanity from cooking itself.
After setting out his hopes for some kind of Conservative, UKIP, DUP deal, and taking a superb shot at Clegg – “I have no desire to swap the short-term privilege of a ministerial car for everything that we have fought for” – he rules out being a member of a formal coalition. “Apart from anything else, most of the people sitting around that Cabinet table are ghastly – I do not want to be with them and I am sure they feel the same way about me.”
His price for this deal he’s looking for? An in/out referendum, in 2015, on EU membership. That sounds fair enough but of course, it wouldn’t be Farage if there wasn’t some kind of jiggery-pokery going on. One of his four, more detailed points is that EU citizens living in the UK would be barred from voting. That, of course, would most likely be a few million or so votes in favour of EU membership. Dressing it up as a question of fairness and letting the British decide Britain’s future, sounds reasonable enough but it’s also a neat little bit of Gerrymandering, to UKIP’s benefit. He also notes this could mean a “battle with the European Court of Justice – but so be it.” I’m sure he’d love just such a thing. It would obviously delay the referendum and give him plenty of time to tell everyone how ‘Europe’ is trying to stop us even having a referendum. For an anti-politician who isn’t part of the ‘political class’ Farage clearly knows a fair few tricks.
And the best trick of all – his suggestion for the wording of the all-important question: ‘Do you wish to be a free, independent sovereign democracy?’ As blatantly leading referendum questions go, it’s not all that far away from the one Pakistan’s President Zia -ul-Haq asked in 1984 (and I’m paraphrasing a little here) ‘President Zia-ul-Haq is making Pakistan more Islamic. Do you agree with Islam?’ Claiming a 98.5% ‘yes’ vote, the President, who had installed himself after a military coup in 1977, used the results to justify another five year term in office.
Again Farage, so at pains to present himself as an ordinary, honest bloke is just as much of a politician as the rest of them. His affable image and his ‘outsider’ façade are just that – a façade. He wrote this book presumably to help win him some votes. Sadly, for all its entertaining qualities, it’s a pretty decent insight into how he actually thinks and operates. That it’s riddled with errors, distortions, half-truths and bullshitting and generally feels like it was thrown together in a weekend, carelessly and with no real attention to detail, is probably appropriate.
July 9, 2017
Nigel Farage takes us on a journey from his senior school days to his work buying and selling non-precious metals for fridges, cars and other products etc. How to spot an opportunity and how to get off the bus at the right moment. How from here he went into politics as the Europen Parliament began to stifle London with unwanted regulation. On his first excursion to Brussels as an MEP he began to think he was not getting himself heard by people back in the UK. He found this vexing until social media and YouTube catapulted him to the world. His hard and frank outspoken criticism of the EU went viral on many occasions. Mainstream media were out in the cold. Great read and I would highly recommend this gripping book.
July 29, 2018
I don't know if Nigel Farage is a Leninist (I rather suspect not) but if he is I assume he holds UKIP to be the revolutionary party which will spearhead a general uprising against the technocratic bureaucracy of Brussels and usher in a prelapsarian age of restored sovereignty, individual responsibility and small government. Or at least this is what I assume Mr Farage wants as his 300 page, double spaced memoir is silent on the subject, indeed it is silent on almost every subject.
If The Purple Revolution, is meant to be a political treatises it fails. Aside from laying out a demand to leave the EU and restore the Englishman’s ‘inherited rights’ there is almost nothing in the way of policy in the book and far less on the philosophy which might lead to some policies. Even on the central matter of Europe Farage is fairly weak, he spends half the book lamenting the uselessness of European politicians (often in deeply disparaging terms) and fondly recalling stories about how plucky old Nigel managed to run rings around them, whilst the other half of the book is devoted to telling you how dangerous the EU is and how it has destroyed the UK.
In exactly what manner the EU has destroyed Britain is unclear, beyond the closing of a power station in Kent and the forcing of some hedge funds to flee to Switzerland Farage does not name a single instance in which EU intervention has been bad for the UK. His assertions about the stresses placed on local services by immigration are either untrue, such as his claim that the average waiting time in an A&E department in Lincolnshire was nine hours (they weren't, 80% of patients were seen in less than four) or are anecdotal and lacking in any supporting evidence. If you want to stand for election these are really the sort of claims you should have checked.
This is not a manifesto, nor is this a chronicle of the rise of UKIP, it is a ‘get to know Nigel exercise’. In this case the book is a success, I do feel I have got to know Nigel and I have to say I do not like him one bit. To go on his own account, Nigel Farage is self-important, out of touch, rude, hypocritical and, quite possibly, deeply stupid.
Rather than disagreeing with people Nigel ‘loathes’ or ‘despises’ them, he adopts to pose of the sane man in the world of lunatics but does it without any grace. Nick Clegg is ‘boring’, Michael Howard is ‘ghastly’, the whole EU commission is ‘talent free’ and Baroness Ashton who has successfully run a whole series of NGO’s and government agencies is “a woman who married well” with “no talent, no ability, no skills, no experience”.
What is more Farage is a hypocrite and proud of it, he continually describes the boorish behaviour of the house of commons as off putting yet revels in his role leading the heckling of Portuguese Prime Minister José Sócrates in the European Parliament. Indeed the moment you will loose all faith in his tome is when he declares, seemingly without irony, that he avoids negative campaigning and he finds it off-putting. But without any programme of his own, and 300 pages of little but attacks on the ‘political establishment’, is this not the longest attack ad in history?
If The Purple Revolution, is meant to be a political treatises it fails. Aside from laying out a demand to leave the EU and restore the Englishman’s ‘inherited rights’ there is almost nothing in the way of policy in the book and far less on the philosophy which might lead to some policies. Even on the central matter of Europe Farage is fairly weak, he spends half the book lamenting the uselessness of European politicians (often in deeply disparaging terms) and fondly recalling stories about how plucky old Nigel managed to run rings around them, whilst the other half of the book is devoted to telling you how dangerous the EU is and how it has destroyed the UK.
In exactly what manner the EU has destroyed Britain is unclear, beyond the closing of a power station in Kent and the forcing of some hedge funds to flee to Switzerland Farage does not name a single instance in which EU intervention has been bad for the UK. His assertions about the stresses placed on local services by immigration are either untrue, such as his claim that the average waiting time in an A&E department in Lincolnshire was nine hours (they weren't, 80% of patients were seen in less than four) or are anecdotal and lacking in any supporting evidence. If you want to stand for election these are really the sort of claims you should have checked.
This is not a manifesto, nor is this a chronicle of the rise of UKIP, it is a ‘get to know Nigel exercise’. In this case the book is a success, I do feel I have got to know Nigel and I have to say I do not like him one bit. To go on his own account, Nigel Farage is self-important, out of touch, rude, hypocritical and, quite possibly, deeply stupid.
Rather than disagreeing with people Nigel ‘loathes’ or ‘despises’ them, he adopts to pose of the sane man in the world of lunatics but does it without any grace. Nick Clegg is ‘boring’, Michael Howard is ‘ghastly’, the whole EU commission is ‘talent free’ and Baroness Ashton who has successfully run a whole series of NGO’s and government agencies is “a woman who married well” with “no talent, no ability, no skills, no experience”.
What is more Farage is a hypocrite and proud of it, he continually describes the boorish behaviour of the house of commons as off putting yet revels in his role leading the heckling of Portuguese Prime Minister José Sócrates in the European Parliament. Indeed the moment you will loose all faith in his tome is when he declares, seemingly without irony, that he avoids negative campaigning and he finds it off-putting. But without any programme of his own, and 300 pages of little but attacks on the ‘political establishment’, is this not the longest attack ad in history?
Read
August 25, 2016There's a very well-known book (and other goods) website full of fake reviews of this book by people who have never read a page of it and rate it zero stars. Why? Because Nigel Farage has gone against the grain and challenged the establishment and political climate of the day. This book is a well-written, frank and surprising in equal measure. Highlights include the extraordinary plane crash, the remarkable steps taken to keep Tory defectors secret and the nasty tricks employed by the Tories a the time and Farage's personal health battles under the media glare. This is as honest a political book as you will ever read.
Want to read
May 27, 2021I HAVE NOT READ THIS BOOOOK!!!!!!!
But, apparently, APPARENTLY I SAID. If a man loves this book it is a good reason to cut him off. This female thread I am reading is hilarious. That being said, been working since 4 and wanna finish two things. My chest is hurting which is big sign of me overdoing it.
But, apparently, APPARENTLY I SAID. If a man loves this book it is a good reason to cut him off. This female thread I am reading is hilarious. That being said, been working since 4 and wanna finish two things. My chest is hurting which is big sign of me overdoing it.
October 19, 2017
As an American with little understanding of the gears that grind inside Britain's elected representation, I learned quite a bit and enjoyed the read. The book is a first-hand account, inside baseball (or cricket I suppose), from a politician who gets down in the weeds, worrying about the costs of events, elections, and get out the vote efforts. What a terrific point of view, especially for those of us in the colonies.
The book exudes humor, energy, and honesty, warts and all.
The book exudes humor, energy, and honesty, warts and all.
April 8, 2015
An interesting read so close to the General Election. As a UKIP supporter I am biased but it gives a good account of his political journey and that of UKIP.
June 11, 2022
I think it's important to broaden your exposure to as wide an array of opinions as possible, particularly those that don't align with your own. This definitely falls under that category. What I knew about UKIP is mainly what I picked up from their campaigning during the Brexit referendum and the occasional news article since - enough to know they weren't for me lol
Enjoyed:
I know more about his opinions beyond the EU and immigration (NHS performance, school funding etc) which was interesting. It was also interesting to read about his experiences as an MEP and his speeches in EU parliament (which he's right about being under-reported in the media). He brought up interesting points about technocratic institutions being anti-democratic. Also, I did laugh at some parts. The damp-rag and apology to bank tellers was hilarious.
One small part I particularly enjoyed reading about was their campaigning experience and announcements they had to keep under wraps. There was a tiny bit about having to buy burner phones and communicating via proxies to avoid suspected phone tapping which is wild to think about. Similar to Obama's memoir where they had run-ins with foreign intelligence spying and loads of preventative measures. Interesting stuff.
Didn't Enjoy:
It did feel like he spent a lot of this book whining about how the EU ruined his boozy lunches and slap dash dealings in the City. He brought up some interesting stuff about the 2008 recession and his opinion that the financial markets being made worse by EU legislation, but always went back to how it's not as good as the old days when they would pack up at lunch and go on a 12 hour sesh. Not very convincing.
Even bigger eye-roll moments were whenever he talked about UKIP controversies (Godfrey Bloom comes to mind - he was right in firing him, but was still defending him in this book!? Ridiculous.)
Also, the chapter on going to America and learning about how to utilise their election techniques was chilling. It's scary reading about this and knowing it's being used and abused today (Cambridge Analytica) and the power it holds.
Overall, I'm glad I read this book. My overall opinion about the party and Farage hasn't changed, but it was interesting to get an insight to the elections and Labour's demographic shift from a perspective I haven't in the past. Also interesting reading this and his predictions from back in 2014, knowing what we do now.
Enjoyed:
I know more about his opinions beyond the EU and immigration (NHS performance, school funding etc) which was interesting. It was also interesting to read about his experiences as an MEP and his speeches in EU parliament (which he's right about being under-reported in the media). He brought up interesting points about technocratic institutions being anti-democratic. Also, I did laugh at some parts. The damp-rag and apology to bank tellers was hilarious.
One small part I particularly enjoyed reading about was their campaigning experience and announcements they had to keep under wraps. There was a tiny bit about having to buy burner phones and communicating via proxies to avoid suspected phone tapping which is wild to think about. Similar to Obama's memoir where they had run-ins with foreign intelligence spying and loads of preventative measures. Interesting stuff.
Didn't Enjoy:
It did feel like he spent a lot of this book whining about how the EU ruined his boozy lunches and slap dash dealings in the City. He brought up some interesting stuff about the 2008 recession and his opinion that the financial markets being made worse by EU legislation, but always went back to how it's not as good as the old days when they would pack up at lunch and go on a 12 hour sesh. Not very convincing.
Even bigger eye-roll moments were whenever he talked about UKIP controversies (Godfrey Bloom comes to mind - he was right in firing him, but was still defending him in this book!? Ridiculous.)
Also, the chapter on going to America and learning about how to utilise their election techniques was chilling. It's scary reading about this and knowing it's being used and abused today (Cambridge Analytica) and the power it holds.
Overall, I'm glad I read this book. My overall opinion about the party and Farage hasn't changed, but it was interesting to get an insight to the elections and Labour's demographic shift from a perspective I haven't in the past. Also interesting reading this and his predictions from back in 2014, knowing what we do now.
September 24, 2024
Nigel Farage was, and is a kind of mercurial figure in British political scene, long known for his eurosceptic political stance, he was one of the driving figures on Brexit Referendum. This book takes back before that moment, in 2014, to be exact, the high mark of his-then political party, the United Kingdom Independence Party or UKIP, regarded by political establishment as bunch of fruitcakes and gadflies (not really wrong if you asked me). After unexpectedly winning the European Election, Then they proceeded to win two by-elections triggered by two of Conservative MPs to UKIP.
Within this book, his life was also described, such as his early life and career before turning himself into full time professional, his life-threatening experiences of having testicular cancer and crashing a plane. Furthermore, Nigel also discussed the prospect of UKIP turning into the third largest political party in United Kingdom, a wish that was fulfilled in 2015 General Election but due to British first-past-the-post electoral system translated into a net lost of an MP. However, looking at Nigel today, he came from a long road to where he is now (finally entering Westminster as an MP), and that has to be respected.
Within this book, his life was also described, such as his early life and career before turning himself into full time professional, his life-threatening experiences of having testicular cancer and crashing a plane. Furthermore, Nigel also discussed the prospect of UKIP turning into the third largest political party in United Kingdom, a wish that was fulfilled in 2015 General Election but due to British first-past-the-post electoral system translated into a net lost of an MP. However, looking at Nigel today, he came from a long road to where he is now (finally entering Westminster as an MP), and that has to be respected.
February 4, 2024
I think the biggest issue with this book is that is very non-linear and completely off the cuff. Of course, this is certainly Farage's style, but it can be a bit confusing if the reader doesn't find the material interesting. I, for one, didn't have this issue. I am of the opinion that Nigel Farage is one of the most unique, misunderstood, and important political figures of our time and this book does give a thorough insight into who he is, what he believes, and how he got to where he is. I think anyone looking to further their knowledge on the subject of Brexit should read this. The only other major issue with this book is that more or less ends on a cliffhanger; as the book was published before the May 2015 general election.
July 12, 2025
I purchased this book quite some time ago and my political stances have changed quite dramatically since then so I found it hard to rate it objectively.
This was a very easy quick read compared to other political memoirs. It felt like what I'd imagine having a conversation with Nigel Farage would be like . He comes across as being very down to earth, relatable and matter of fact which I enjoyed. I also particularly enjoyed the story of the plane crash he was involved in, although I'm not sure how much of this is exaggerated.
Overall, if you are a fan of Nigel Farage then you'll enjoy this if not then this won't do anything to sway you.
This was a very easy quick read compared to other political memoirs. It felt like what I'd imagine having a conversation with Nigel Farage would be like . He comes across as being very down to earth, relatable and matter of fact which I enjoyed. I also particularly enjoyed the story of the plane crash he was involved in, although I'm not sure how much of this is exaggerated.
Overall, if you are a fan of Nigel Farage then you'll enjoy this if not then this won't do anything to sway you.
September 5, 2024
I like many things he says, but he is way too political. He helps some pretty sketchy people if they help him. I lost confidence in Mr. Farage when he got associated with Andrew Henderson, and Nomad Capitalist. All the people I know who worked with Andrew said he was very sneaky and cheated them.
November 30, 2016
One of my hobbies has always been trying to get into the minds and souls of those polarizing figures of this world, those demons and figures of hatred, those whose rouse such emotion in others. Whether it be dictators, serial killers, paedophiles or ummm... Well, y'know... Nigel Farage and others of his class, background and choice of vocation (you can also add Jade Goody and Simon Cowell to this list, while we are here), I am fascinated at quite what makes them tick and how they sleep at night. And if possibly, find out which fucking prescription drug helps them...
So, to 'The Purple Revolution' (cover a parody of Russell Brand's book). My first response and observation is that a lot of this book is just re-printed content from his first book, 'Flying Free', including anecdotes from the city and the events surrounding his early life and car and plane crashes specifically. The other main observation is the way this book is printed. At first glance it seems quite thick but in reality, the text is quite large and the lines seem to be double spaced too, which pads the book out. Or maybe it is just designed to help the average UKIP voter. If nothing else, the spaces on the page give way for crayon swastikas and accompanying racist jollities.
The new content covers the last couple of years, the stories behind European and local elections and UKIP's (spinned) success. And that's about it really. Which is all really interesting to get his insight from, but there's not a great deal to justify another book. What he should have done is hung back for a year or two because then something would have really happened to write about. Something even he was surprised about, the eventual Brexit debacle. It's both poignant and worrying reading this in this climate of our country, especially seeing him pictured with the shock winner of the US election, Donald Trump.
He doesn't mention Donald Trump and the impending and eventual successor to Obama in the next couple of year's, only because at the time of publication, the idea of Trump running wasn't even a consideration. But the one interesting thing he does say about the state of the republican party is that he massively puts over both Steve Bannon and Jeff Sessions, who were Trump's first announced cabinet picks, announced shortly after Farage was the first post-election visitor from any other country.
So anyway, in true Farage fashion, I won't say anymore but just reprint word-for-word my original review of his first book. Because if he can fucking do it, so can I.
"I'm not sure where to start. Im not exactly the sort of voter that is on UKIP and Farage's radar, shall we say. I am certainly no sympathiser of any opinion or stance that merely glances towards the wing of right. So can someone tell me why I both enjoyed this book and agreed with a lot of what he had to say?
I mean, come on. He certainly isn't going to make a fan out of me (let alone a dissenter of principles) gushing endearingly about his encounter with Enoch Powell and what a great bloke he was, neither am I going to warm to you for comparing the management and depletion of fish stocks to slavery or the EU as a governing body as a serial date rapist, but yet I am curiously drawn to what a lot of it seems basic common sense and clever and sound reformist suggestions.
Whereas, a tougher line on immigration is high on its list and the fact that his party really have overlooked giving responsibility within to some very dubious sorts over the years, UKIP are certainly not racist. Out of touch with the modern world and xenophobic, yes. They are certainly no BNP, who Farage describes as vile. In fact, even though he comes across generally arrogant and smug and prances about like some chippy Sgt Major sort, he really is just a harmless chap that yearns wistfully for simpler things and times and fears only change and the loss of ones cultural identity and the idea that we are forced to do so by a larger epiric unelected entity, who use our "hard-earned" (Well, most) taxes wastefully and criminally elsewhere from our green and pleasant land, this fair isle of ours. Of cream teas, village fetes, cricket and the lark.
But the country isn't like that and times do change. He is dismissive and tetchy from the word go upon his arrival as an MEP in Brussels and tries wherever to kick up a stink. He has every right to, but admits he gets carried away somewhat. Which tends to undermine his argument. He wishes for not only electoral reform, but less of centralized government and for us as a whole to become more of a self governing, inclusive community. A lot of which, strangely, I find Russell Brand echoing at times. The frustrations are certainly the same, even if the ideologies sometimes are not parallel.
It is definitely worth a read. I didn't come away vengeful or incredulous as very much a leftie, but then I thrive on nothing more than discovering how people of opposite opinions tick and whether or not these intriguing characters have more in common with I than I first thought. I wouldn't turn down a long, fascinating chinwag over a few pints of handpulled, that's for sure. I would just hope he would check his braggadocio at the door."
So, to 'The Purple Revolution' (cover a parody of Russell Brand's book). My first response and observation is that a lot of this book is just re-printed content from his first book, 'Flying Free', including anecdotes from the city and the events surrounding his early life and car and plane crashes specifically. The other main observation is the way this book is printed. At first glance it seems quite thick but in reality, the text is quite large and the lines seem to be double spaced too, which pads the book out. Or maybe it is just designed to help the average UKIP voter. If nothing else, the spaces on the page give way for crayon swastikas and accompanying racist jollities.
The new content covers the last couple of years, the stories behind European and local elections and UKIP's (spinned) success. And that's about it really. Which is all really interesting to get his insight from, but there's not a great deal to justify another book. What he should have done is hung back for a year or two because then something would have really happened to write about. Something even he was surprised about, the eventual Brexit debacle. It's both poignant and worrying reading this in this climate of our country, especially seeing him pictured with the shock winner of the US election, Donald Trump.
He doesn't mention Donald Trump and the impending and eventual successor to Obama in the next couple of year's, only because at the time of publication, the idea of Trump running wasn't even a consideration. But the one interesting thing he does say about the state of the republican party is that he massively puts over both Steve Bannon and Jeff Sessions, who were Trump's first announced cabinet picks, announced shortly after Farage was the first post-election visitor from any other country.
So anyway, in true Farage fashion, I won't say anymore but just reprint word-for-word my original review of his first book. Because if he can fucking do it, so can I.
"I'm not sure where to start. Im not exactly the sort of voter that is on UKIP and Farage's radar, shall we say. I am certainly no sympathiser of any opinion or stance that merely glances towards the wing of right. So can someone tell me why I both enjoyed this book and agreed with a lot of what he had to say?
I mean, come on. He certainly isn't going to make a fan out of me (let alone a dissenter of principles) gushing endearingly about his encounter with Enoch Powell and what a great bloke he was, neither am I going to warm to you for comparing the management and depletion of fish stocks to slavery or the EU as a governing body as a serial date rapist, but yet I am curiously drawn to what a lot of it seems basic common sense and clever and sound reformist suggestions.
Whereas, a tougher line on immigration is high on its list and the fact that his party really have overlooked giving responsibility within to some very dubious sorts over the years, UKIP are certainly not racist. Out of touch with the modern world and xenophobic, yes. They are certainly no BNP, who Farage describes as vile. In fact, even though he comes across generally arrogant and smug and prances about like some chippy Sgt Major sort, he really is just a harmless chap that yearns wistfully for simpler things and times and fears only change and the loss of ones cultural identity and the idea that we are forced to do so by a larger epiric unelected entity, who use our "hard-earned" (Well, most) taxes wastefully and criminally elsewhere from our green and pleasant land, this fair isle of ours. Of cream teas, village fetes, cricket and the lark.
But the country isn't like that and times do change. He is dismissive and tetchy from the word go upon his arrival as an MEP in Brussels and tries wherever to kick up a stink. He has every right to, but admits he gets carried away somewhat. Which tends to undermine his argument. He wishes for not only electoral reform, but less of centralized government and for us as a whole to become more of a self governing, inclusive community. A lot of which, strangely, I find Russell Brand echoing at times. The frustrations are certainly the same, even if the ideologies sometimes are not parallel.
It is definitely worth a read. I didn't come away vengeful or incredulous as very much a leftie, but then I thrive on nothing more than discovering how people of opposite opinions tick and whether or not these intriguing characters have more in common with I than I first thought. I wouldn't turn down a long, fascinating chinwag over a few pints of handpulled, that's for sure. I would just hope he would check his braggadocio at the door."
February 6, 2021
A great villains backstory of one of the most dangerous men in British politics
December 1, 2022
horrible man but oddly interesting
November 11, 2025
Very disappointed. Prince was barely mentioned, with the author instead focusing on how amazing he is. Well, he's not as good as Prince, that's for sure
January 5, 2020
Nigel Farage takes us through his life, from school, to his first job, and all the way up to the 2015 election in May. He details things what shaped his view, whether it was his experiences in work, or other significant life events like his cancer diagnosis. He does this with his charismatic and humorous writing styles, and it gives us an insight to who the man Nigel Farage is, what his views actually are, and what has shaped them - how he set UKIP up, and how he rose to significance, and albeit temporarily, how he destroyed Britain's two party electoral system. A thoroughly enjoyable read.
April 21, 2015
Hmmmm bit of a mixed bag here. On the one hand I actually really enjoyed the book. On the other, this is clearly a work of propaganda and I am not swayed to vote for him.
As a "my life so far" piece it's quite interesting and the guy for all his flaws comes across likeable in certain ways but then there's moments where you go back to realising that his behaviour probably isn't quite right for a man who'd like to run the country.
As a "my life so far" piece it's quite interesting and the guy for all his flaws comes across likeable in certain ways but then there's moments where you go back to realising that his behaviour probably isn't quite right for a man who'd like to run the country.
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