Nigel Farage Is Ukip Success Story

Nigel Farage is hoping to become the first UKIP candidate elected to the House of Commons in today’s General Election.

He has broken with convention by challenging Speaker John Bercow in his Buckingham constituency, while the three big parties stood aside.
Nigel Farage is hoping to become the first UKIP candidate elected to the House of Commons in today’s General Election.

He has broken with convention by challenging Speaker John Bercow in his Buckingham constituency, while the three big parties stood aside.

The 46-year-old former commodity broker has represented UKIP as MEP for South-East England in the European Parliament since 1999, and was the party’s most successful leader until stepping down in September to fight the election.

Known for his irreverent approach to politics and his withering disdain for EU institutions, Mr Farage has shown himself adept at winning publicity for his party by unusual stunts.

In March this year he outraged many at Brussels by branding Europe’s new president Herman van Rompuy a man with “all the charisma of a damp rag and the appearance of a low-grade bank clerk” and dismissing his homeland of Belgium as a “non-country”.

He was given a dressing-down for his undiplomatic language by the president of the European Parliament, but refused to apologise.

He was equally unrepentant when it was reported that he had received nearly £2 million in expenses and allowances over a decade in Brussels, saying it had been spent on promoting Ukip’s anti-EU message.

Earlier spats had seen him take on European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso and his vice-president Jacques Barrot.

In 2008 he was accused of anti-royalism for refusing to take part in a standing ovation for the Prince of Wales after a speech calling on the EU to take a leading role in the fight against climate change. Farage said the Prince’s advisers had been “naive”.

An enthusiastic Conservative from his schooldays at south London’s Dulwich College, Mr Farage split from the party in 1992 when John Major’s Government signed the Maastricht Treaty.

He was a founding member of Ukip the following year and served as chairman from 1998-2000 before being elected leader in 2006.

He stood for the party in the last three General Elections as well as three by-elections, including Bromley and Chislehurst in 2006, when he took 8% of the vote and knocked Labour into fourth place.

But his finest moment as UKIP leader came in last year’s European Parliament elections, when the party won almost 2.5 million votes (16.5%) and increased its tally of MEPs to 13, finishing in second place – ahead of both Labour and Liberal Democrats – in the country as a whole.

Twice married with four children, Farage lists his recreation in Who’s Who as military history, sea angling and proper English pubs. He is known among political and media acquaintances for his unstuffy good cheer and his fondness for a cigarette and a pint.

If elected MP for Buckingham today he is likely to be the only UKIP representative on the Commons green benches. The party’s only previous MP, Bob Spink – who defected briefly to Ukip after resigning the Conservative whip in 2008 – is standing for re-election in Castle Point, Essex, as an Independent.