For a man who never tires of railing against “the establishment”, Nigel Farage spends an awful lot of time enjoying its comforts. The image he tries to project is of a pint-swilling outsider, bravely taking on a stitched-up political class. The reality is rather different: Farage is not an insurgent at the gates, but a long-standing beneficiary of the very elite circles he claims to despise.
Born the son of a stockbroker, Farage was educated at Dulwich College, one of the UK’s most prestigious public schools, before embarking on a lucrative career in the City as a commodities trader. This is not the backstory of someone excluded from power or locked out by privilege. It is the biography of a man steeped in it from an early age.
When Farage finally entered politics, it was hardly as a revolutionary intent on tearing down entrenched interests. His time as a Member of the European Parliament was marked less by principled rebellion than by a conspicuous enjoyment of the perks that came with the role. He was repeatedly investigated over his use of expenses, while additional financial backing flowed from his multi-millionaire associate Aaron Banks.
That pattern has repeated itself throughout his career. Farage’s alliances have consistently been upward-looking: from Banks, to his enthusiastic attachment to Donald Trump, and more recently his public admiration for Elon Musk. These are not the friendships of a man at war with the establishment. They are the networking habits of someone keen to climb aboard it.
This contradiction is also reflected in his politics. Far from focusing his fire on powerful institutions or entrenched wealth, Farage’s rhetoric has overwhelmingly targeted those with the least power of all. Whether it is refugees fleeing war or migrants struggling to build a life in the UK, he has reliably chosen to punch down rather than up. It is a familiar sleight of hand: pose as an enemy of elites while directing public anger at people even further removed from influence.
Nowhere is this more obvious than in the evolution of the Reform Party itself. Once marketed as a radical alternative, Reform has increasingly become a refuge for disaffected former members of the Conservative Party. By hoovering up ex-Tory councillors, donors and activists, the party has not broken from the establishment at all; it has simply offered it a new logo and a louder megaphone.
The truth is uncomfortable for Farage’s supporters but glaringly obvious to everyone else. A man who dines and drinks in London’s private members’ clubs, mixes freely with billionaires, and has spent decades orbiting the corridors of power is not an anti-establishment outsider. He is establishment through and through – just one who has learned that railing against “the elite” can be a very effective way of protecting his own place within it.