The shameless hypocrisy of Nigel Farage

Read time: 4 minutes

In brief:

• Nigel Farage visited the US Congress asking America to help address Britain's alleged "free speech problems" and called for sanctions on the UK, leading to criticism that he was "bad mouthing" his own country and led to him being branded a “traitor” on social media.
• Farage cries about a ‘free-speech’ problem are riddled with hypocrisy, as his own Reform party has banned local journalists and stopped issuing press releases due to "biased coverage," mirroring Trump's approach of restricting media access when coverage is unfavorable.
• Despite Farage modelling himself on Trump's political strategy, polling shows Trump's favorability among Reform voters has dropped significantly (from 31% to -18%), suggesting British voters don't actually want a "British Trump".

What’s the story?

Nigel Farage has been trending on social media – but not for any reason he might like.

His visit to the US has resulted in the word “traitor” being one of the top trends in the UK on X since he flew to visit America.

The Reform UK leader visited Congress, not to talk up the country he claims to love, but to ask America to help bring it back from the brink of its so-called ‘free speech problem’, claiming that free-speech has become a myth in the Britain and even calling on Donald Trump and his administration to impose sanctions on the UK that would end up making it poorer.

“He's gone to an administration which is hurtling towards autocracy - he doesn't see the irony in pleading to Trump, who cannot stop shutting people down, that we have the problem,” Emily Maitlis says on The News Agents.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer slammed his political rival as having "flown to America to badmouth and talk down our country," and Farage was no more well-received when he arrived in Congress.

Jamie Raskin - who Emily describes as a “very well briefed Democrat” - labelled Farage a “Putin-loving free speech impostor and Trump sycophant” in an impassioned takedown of the Clacton MP, directly warning Brits to “think twice before you let Mr Farage make Britain great again."

“Farage got torched. Raskin ran him over,” Emily says.

“Many in America simply haven't seen the true nature of Nigel Farage, and he's had first hand experience,” she adds, referring to when Farage himself cut-off Raskin from speaking, at a free-speech conference.

Is Nigel Farage one to talk about the right to exercise free speech?

The hypocrisy of Nigel Farage extends beyond begging America - a country at odds with democracy - to save the UK from its free speech ‘problems’. Farage himself picks and chooses, as so many that scream ‘censorship’ do, which free speech is acceptable, and which isn’t.

For example, Reform Nottinghamshire County Council has stopped speaking to local journalists and handing out press releases on account of what Reform is calling ‘biased coverage’. They’ve said the ban won’t be lifted until journalists apologise.

It’s a leaf straight out of Donald Trump’s playbook, as Jon Sopel explains.

“In America, there is not a whole lot of free speech right now, The Associated Press, the main news agency – independent, impartial – is banned from traveling with President Trump, because it wouldn't call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, which is something that Trump decreed would be renamed after his election win.”

In other words, Nigel Farage and Donald Trump value free speech - until they disagree with it.

“If you believe in free speech, you don't fear those people, you embrace those people, you challenge those people, you argue with those people, you don't ban them,” Jon says. “And yet, that is what Nigel Farage has done.”

And while he says he’s appearing in the congressional hearing to represent Britain, he’s curiously been during his visit seen wearing a lapel, not of the Union Jack, but of GB news - the right-wing news channel that he is a minority shareholder of, and on which he hosts a show.

“Is he representing Britain, which is what he says he's doing, as the elected representative for Clacton-on-sea, or is he there representing a right wing TV channel which was launching in America that day?” Emily asks.

“What a coincidence. “

Does the UK really want to be more like America?

“Nigel Farage is modeling himself on Donald Trump,” Jon says.

He’s looked at Trump’s electoral success across the pond as someone who sits outside of the establishment, selling the message that everyone is against him, and emulated that strategy.

But Reform voters don’t necessarily want a British Trump. Polling by More In Common shows that Trump had a favourability rating of 31% among Reform voters when he was inaugurated back in January, which has since dropped to minus 18.

“People have watched his first eight months in office, and thought ‘crikey, don't bring that here’,” Emily says.

“So you have to wonder why Farage thinks it's helpful to play up to a man that many of his voters don't even like.”

Since his second term as President began, Donald Trump has had a profound impact on America - and not in a good way. US citizens have been on the receiving end of endless upheaval; universities threatened, vaccines at risk, knock-on effect of tariffs, senior and respected government workers fired at Trump’s will.

“Even if America, right now, was the best country in the world, there is something so unsavory about heading off there just to slag this country off,” Emily says.

But Farage’s actions in bad-mouthing the UK abroad are the crux of how he and his party operates, spreading populist messaging because it’s easier to talk about ‘broken Britain’ than to offer real, practical solutions.

“Of course Britain is broken. He broke it,” Emily says.

“He's done everything he could to break down this country, whether it's community cohesion, whether it's our economic wealth through Brexit, whether it's our approach to foreigners, whether it's our understanding, actually, of fundamentally good British values.

“He's broken all that, and now he's going off to tell everyone abroad how broken we are. Well, thanks.”

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