Nigel Farage

Credentials

Dulwich College, 1975-1982.¹

Background

Nigel Farage is the leader of Reform UK² and an MP for the party in Clacton-on-Sea, having been elected in the July 2024 general election, overturning a previous Conservative Party majority of over 25,000 by 8,000 votes.³ Farage is a GB News presenter.⁴

Farage is the former leader and co-founder of the Brexit Party, which he set up ahead of the European Parliament elections in May 2019 to express “anger” over the fact that Britain had not yet withdrawn from the EU and to “change politics for good.”⁵ The Brexit Party became Reform UK in January 2021, when the UK officially withdrew from the European Union.⁶

Multi-millionaire property investor and GB News presenter Richard Tice was the leader of Reform UK, with Farage serving as the party’s “honorary president”, until June 3, 2024.⁷ DeSmog reported in June 2024 that Reform UK had received more than £2.3 million from oil and gas interests, highly polluting industries, and climate science deniers since December 2019, amounting to 92 percent of the party’s donations.⁸

Farage announced on June 3, 2024 that he was returning to Reform UK to lead the party and would stand in the July 2024 general election as the party’s candidate in Clacton.⁹ DeSmog reported in June 2024 that Farage’s potential seat, Clacton, is threatened by rising sea levels and flooding due to global warming, according to mapping from the science-based visualisation platform Climate Central. ¹⁰

Farage became a presenter of his own news and opinion show, Farage,¹¹ on GB News in July 2021, a channel which, according to a 2023 DeSmog analysis, platformed climate denial and opposition to climate action across one third of its shows.¹²

Farage has used his GB News platform to launch a “Net Zero Referendum” on the UK’s climate targets under the name of his new group “Vote Power Not Poverty,” co-founded by Reform UK’s leader Richard Tice.¹³

Farage has cast doubt on climate science on a number of occasions and both UKIP and the Brexit Party have fielded numerous climate science denying candidates.¹⁴ ¹⁵

Farage was Vice-chairman of Leave Means Leave, a campaign group set up after the EU referendum to advocate a “hard” Brexit. He led the group with Chairman Richard Tice and former head of the British Chambers of Commerce, John Longworth.¹⁶

Other members of Leave Means Leave included figures that have cast doubt on the veracity of climate science and the seriousness of climate change including Owen Paterson, Christopher Chope, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Peter Lilley.¹⁷

Leave Means Leave was based at 55 Tufton Street, home to several organisations pushing for a hard Brexit as well as the UK‘s principal climate science denial group, the Global Warming Policy Foundation.

Prior to the EU referendum, Farage led the UK Independence Party (UKIP), of which he was a founder member, until July 2016. ¹⁸ ¹⁹

UKIP’s party manifestos for the 2015 and 2017 elections both pledged to undo green initiatives, analysis by Carbon Brief showed.²⁰ In 2015 it stated “the Climate Change Act is doing untold damage. UKIP will repeal it.” It also argued that “coal must be part of the solution” for cheap energy security and that it’s “time to get fracking.” These themes were repeated in 2017 when the party manifesto called again for the UK Climate Change Act to be repealed while pledging to “withdraw from the Paris climate agreement and the EU Emissions Trading scheme.”²¹

UKIP’s primary goal was to seek the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union, and Farage stepped down as party leader following the EU referendum in June 2016, saying his “political ambition [had] been achieved.” During the Brexit campaign, Farage was a leading member of the unofficial pro-Brexit groups Leave.EU and Grassroots Out.²² ²³

Since then Farage has toured the US and Australia, visiting like-minded conservative groups and appearing as a commentator on Fox News.²⁴ ²⁵ ²⁶

Farage left UKIP in December 2018, saying the party’s leader Gerard Batten was “obsessed” with the issue of Islam and the ex-English Defence League leader Tommy Robinson.²⁷

From 2017-2020, he was the host of the “Nigel Farage Show,” a radio phone-in on the London-based national radio station, LBC.²⁸

Stance on Climate Change

June 13, 2023

Farage posted a video on Twitter in which he argued that the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan’s calls to reduce air pollution by cutting car engine use, would pave the way to ‘climate lockdowns’:

“Mark my words this isn’t going to end with 20mph zones and low-traffic neighbourhoods. No no. This is the beginning of climate lockdowns. We will have, in years to come, days where we’re told we can’t drive, we can’t do this, you can’t do that while Sadiq Khan is leading the way. Remember you heard it here first. Climate lockdowns.”²⁹

Three days later on June 16, Farage tweeted “Sadiq Khan’s climate crackdowns are about controlling our lives.”³⁰

August 31, 2021

In an appearance on a GB News segment titled “How far should we go to tackle Climate Change?”, Nigel Farage said to fellow presenter Alex Phillips:

“I’m very much an environmentalist Alex, I have been for 40 years […] I’m all for sensible environmentalism, I can’t abide things like plastics in our seas, pollution in our rivers and I want things done about it and I’m pleased to say that in some cases things have been done. Certainly our rivers are much much better than they were 20, 40 years ago. What annoys me though, is this complete obsession with carbon dioxide almost to the exclusion of everything else, the alarmism that comes with it, based on dodgy predictions and science, and somehow this, ‘If you don’t agree with us that CO2 is the great evil, you’re against the planet and you’re a denier’. I mean it’s complete and utter rubbish. Does man have an impact on the world? Well, with a global population of now seven and a half billion compared to two and a half billion when I was born, of course man has an impact. But it’s not just man, and what man does that changes climate or the world: it’s volcanic activity, it’s sun spots, it’s so many other things. So look, I want us to have proper, sensible environmental policies but I think this focus on CO2, and this commitment to effectively tax poor people, to give money to rich people and big corporations whilst China’s gonna ignore it all, is gonna leave us in a very uncompetitive position and it’s very unfair on ordinary people.”³¹

January 23, 2020

Presenting a phone in on LBC during the Davos gathering of world leaders, Farage claimed that Donald Trump was taking a positive approach to climate action and criticised Prince Charles and Greta Thunberg for promoting “alarmism.”³²

Farage suggested that population growth was the greatest driver of environmental impacts, including carbon emissions, saying:

“The real problem we’ve got here, I’m going to put this to you, in my view, the real problem we’ve got here with loss of habitat, the destructive effects on biodiversity and all of these problems with carbon emissions or whatever else you want to worry about in the world, is simply because the global population is exploding, it’s the biggest problem that we face.”

November 2015

In an interview with Spiked online:³³

“I haven’t got a clue whether climate change is being driven by carbon-dioxide emissions.”

“I think wind energy is the biggest collective economic insanity I’ve seen in my entire life. I’ve never seen anything more stupid, more illogical, or more irrational.”

June 2013

In an interview with Edie:³⁴

“I am not saying that man is having no influence on the climate, although as the years go by it looks increasingly unlikely. To be told that the science is settled [on global warming] is hard to accept. Where I grew up, our back wall joined onto Down House where Charles Darwin wrote [On the Origin of Species] and 150 years on, the science isn’t settled over Darwin and I can tell you science is never settled.”

“It’s odd to focus on carbon dioxide. I’m an environmentalist; I’m against carbon monoxide and sulphur dioxide and toxins in our rivers. Yes, I’m all for pollution controls but to obsess with carbon dioxide, which as I understand it, is a perfectly natural occurring phenomenon, strikes me as strange.”

September 2013

Speaking in the European Parliament:³⁵

“We may have made one of the biggest and most stupid collective mistakes in history by getting so worried about global warming.”

Key Quotes

September 14, 2024

Nigel Farage was the keynote speakers for a Heartland Foundation fundraiser group, a group that has pioneered climate science denial, where he called on the U.S. to “drill baby drill” for more fossil fuels.³⁶ He also said that “I’d love to see Heartland on the other side of the pond,” and encouraged attendees to vote for U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump.

August 23, 2024

Farage dismissed accusations that he was not taking his job as an MP seriously, and told the MP “Am I going to take this job seriously? You bet your life I am. Am I taking it seriously? Yes, of course I am.”³⁷

June 21, 2024

In an interview with Nick Robinson for BBC Panorama, Nigel Farage was asked whether he stood by comments he had made in 2021 that King Charles was an “eco-loony”, to which he responded “No […] he did used to say that carbon dioxide was a pollutant which I thought was a very stupid comment,” making a similar comment later in the interview that “the King is wrong to say CO2 is a pollutant, that is wrong, clearly.”³⁸

April 18, 2023

Appearing on Sky News Australia, Farage called Just Stop Oil activists, who interrupted the UK Snooker Championship in March 2023, “a new student cult” who have “been indoctrinated” and are “overprivileged middle class kids.”³⁹

He said: “we’ve got to reach a point with these people where their intolerance is met by our intolerance.”

February 20, 2023

Farage tweeted a link to a Times article which called for pro-climate ‘rationing,’ arguing in the caption that measures to reduce climate impacts were akin to “crackpot ideas”:⁴⁰

“Academics propose the rationing to combat climate change! Flights, meat, petrol and even clothing should have a non-transferable token, tracked by a “carbon card” instead of bank card Worst part is these crackpot ideas will soon be mainstream.”

February 7, 2023

In a news bulletin on GB News, Farage claimed that energy security and net zero were “completely and utterly incompatible”, adding that to meet net zero the UK would have to “produce none of our own energy and get rid of pretty much every manufacturing job in the country”.⁴¹

January 9, 2023

In a GB News segment with Alan Miller from the Together campaign – titled “Britain has GIVEN UP on Christianity and embraced the new religion of Greta Thunberg” – Farage said:⁴²

“If people want this, they can have it, this is being imposed without any proper debate between parties. Final thought, the proposals in Canterbury and Oxford that you basically would not be allowed to drive your car out of a very local neighbourhood without a form of charge, this almost feels like a sort of climate lockdown, or am I exaggerating?”

Concluding the segment, Farage reiterated: “If people want these things, that’s fine, they can have them, but it’s just being imposed, it’s crackers, it is the new religion as we give up on Christianity and we embrace the new religion of Greta Thunberg.”

December 15, 2022

In a GB News appearance, Farage labelled HSBC’s decision to no longer provide finance for “projects pertaining to new oil and gas fields and related infrastructure” a “self-inflicted act of lunacy” on the part of the UK.⁴³

He said:

“HSBC will stop funding future oil and gas exploration and development projects. They’re doing it because they want to help us meet our environmental targets. Oh aren’t they so virtuous and wonderful?”

He later added: “This is the madness that has gripped the corporate world. It’s damaging our country.”

November 7, 2022

Farage tweeted: “Ed Miliband’s “climate reparations” shows that people like him on the left have lost their marbles. #COP27.”⁴⁴

September 7, 2022

In a tweet, Farage argued that UK government should not be imposing a windfall tax on oil and gas companies operating to tackle the energy crisis but rather should: “Make the oil and gas companies reinvest profits to make Britain energy self-sufficient. #pmqs.”⁴⁵

August 8, 2022

On an airing of his own show on GB News, Farage questioned the link between extreme weather and climate change, saying: “Which is it? Is climate change giving us floods in the [US] midwest or drought in southern England? I’m confused.”⁴⁶

April 26, 2022

In response to a contributor arguing that net zero policies have received support from both Labour and Conservative voters, after a poll found that the Conservatives may lose 1.3 million voters if net zero targets aren’t met, GB News presenter Nigel Farage suggested it was because “they don’t know the racket, do they, they don’t know what they’ve been charged”.⁴⁷

August 12, 2019

In a speech to the Australian Conservative Political Action Conference reported by the Guardian, Farage made comments about the UK‘s Royal Family, saying:⁴⁸

“When it comes to [the Queen’s] son [Prince Charles], when it comes to Charlie Boy and climate change, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Her mother, Her Royal Highness the Queen’s mother was a slightly overweight, chain-smoking gin drinker who lived to 101 years old. All I can say is Charlie Boy is now in his 70s … may the Queen live a very, very long time.”

Commenting on the marriage of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, he said:⁴⁹

“Terrifying! Here was Harry, here he was this young, brave, boisterous, all male, getting into trouble, turning up at stag parties inappropriately dressed, drinking too much and causing all sorts of mayhem. And then, a brave British officer who did his bit in Afghanistan. He was the most popular royal of a younger generation that we’ve seen for 100 years.

“And then he met Meghan Markle, and it’s fallen off a cliff. We’ve been told in the last week that Meghan and Harry will only have two children … and we’re all completely ignoring, the real problem the Earth faces, and that is the fact the population of the globe is exploding but no one dares talk about it, no one dares deal with it, and whether Prince Harry has two kids is irrelevant given there are now 2.6 billion Chinese and Indians on this Earth.”

February 28, 2018

Farage said on Twitter:⁵⁰

“Large parts of central London have no salt on the roads. Perhaps they are all so convinced by global warming they never thought any would be needed.”

Key Actions

August 17, 2024

Farage was reported to be earning over £1 million per year outside for work outside of parliament, £1.2 million of which comes from GB News alone at nearly £98,000 per month.⁵¹ The Guardian reported that Farage therefore appeared to be the higest-earning MP in the UK.⁵²

July 13, 2024

A report published by The Telegraph revealed that a close associate of Nigel Farage, Andy Wigmore, had held secret talks with Chris Williams, an aide of then-Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, about potential plans to run joint Reform UK-Conservative candidates in ‘red wall’ seats – seats in the north of England that switched from Labour to Conservative in the 2019 general election.⁵³

July 4, 2024

Farage was elected as MP for Clacton-on-Sea for Reform UK in the July 2024 general election, marking his first successful bid in a general election.⁵⁴

June 4, 2024

DeSmog reported that the seat Farage was running for in the July 2024 general election, Clacton, is threatened by rising sea levels and flooding due to global warming, according to mapping from the science-based visualisation platform Climate Central. ⁵⁵ According to Climate Central, substantial parts of Clacton, Essex, will be at risk of yearly flooding even by 2030.⁵⁶

June 3, 2024

Farage announced that he was returning to lead Reform UK and would stand in the July 2024 general election as the party’s candidate in Clacton.⁵⁷

DeSmog reported on June 4 that Reform UK had received more than £2.3 million from oil and gas interests, highly polluting industries, and climate science deniers since December 2019, amounting to 92 percent of the party’s donations.⁵⁸

July 17, 2021

Farage was given his own Monday-Thursday show on GB News called Farage.⁵⁹

June 20, 2021
Farage joined GB News to host the Sunday show The Political Correction.⁶⁰

May 4, 2021

Farage joined Amsterdam-based carbon offset company Dutch Green Business, which aims to reduce carbon emissions by planting trees, as an adviser and spokesperson. He told Reuters: “I think people will want to plant trees and increase biodiversity through DGB who are actually quite sceptical about climate change. Equally there will be others who are very concerned about it.” He also said: “If their motivations are more about biodiversity than they are about climate change, so what?”⁶¹

According to The Guardian, Dutch Green Business is part owned by businessman John Mappin, a supporter of the conspiracy theorist QAnon movement.⁶²

December 7, 2020

Farage stated that his new party, Reform UK, would recruit candidates to stand against “any and every” politician who backed Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s 10-point plan for a ‘Green Industrial Revolution,’ Breitbart reported. Farage also reportedly described Johnson’s policies to convert streets into cul-de-sacs as “madness,” and an opportunity for the government to “virtue-signal and show off its eco-credentials.”⁶³

November 2, 2020

An interview with Farage by talkRADIO’s Mike Graham discussing the 2020 U.S. Presidential election was quoted in The Daily Express. In response to Graham claiming that “in Pennsylvania, Joe Biden’s home state, Biden has said he wants to do away with the oil business and fracking”, and “that is not going to play too well for one of the world’s centres for oil and fracking”, Farage responded: “these are blue-collar jobs, these are communities who traditionally vote Democrat but under Joe Biden they will lose their jobs”, continuing: “I think you are right, I think that is an absolute key for Pennsylvania”.⁶⁴

July 4, 2019

Farage paid tribute to the late Christopher Booker in an interview with the right-wing website Breitbart, describing how Booker campaigned with him for the UK to leave the European Union in the 1990s. Farage also said during the interview:⁶⁵

“[Booker] questioned whether CO2 was actually leading to climate change, he questioned all the attempts to shut down free speech and open debate.”

May 16, 2019

A Channel 4 News investigation revealed that Farage’s close ally, Arron Banks, had spent approximately £450,000 funding a lavish lifestyle for Farage in the year following the 2016 EU referendum.⁶⁶

April 12, 2019

Farage launched the Brexit Party ahead of the European Union elections in May. Among the 70 candidates selected to stand was Annunziata Rees-Mogg, sister of the pro-Brexit, climate science denying Conservative MP, Jacob Rees-Mogg. Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Farage said his former party, UKIP, had allowed “the far right to join it and take it over and I’m afraid the brand is now tarnished,” while claiming that there was “no difference” in terms of policy between the two parties. Three UKIP MEPs announced they had defected to the party four days later.⁶⁷ ⁶⁸

February 9, 2019

It was announced that Farage would run in the upcoming European Parliament elections for a newly-registered Brexit Party, if Britain had not left the EU by this point.⁶⁹

November 2016

Farage claimed the distinction of being the first British politician to meet with Donald Trump after the US presidential election.⁷⁰ A photo taken on November 12 shows the two men standing in front of Trump’s golden elevator in New York City alongside millionaire UKIP and Brexit-backer Arron Banks, Breitbart UK editor Raheem Kassam, unofficial Brexit campaign group Leave.EU pollster Gerry Gunster, and Andy Wigmore, communications director of Leave.EU.⁷¹ ⁷²

July 2016

Farage attended the Republican National Convention during the 2016 presidential race which led to the election of Donald Trump. His goal was to spread the “Brexit gospel,” as Politico reported at the time. “I think there are a lot of Republican strategists who are looking very closely at what we did and how we did it,” Farage told Politico, adding “All I can do is to come and tell my story.”⁷³

July 2015

Farage delivered a speech to the Heritage Foundation in Washington D.C. where he made the case for the US to support Brexit. The Heritage Foundation is a conservative “free enterprise” group with a history of promoting climate science denial.⁷⁴