He probably won’t want to hear this but there is an air of General De Gaulle about Nigel Farage. De Gaulle came to define French politics through a mix of deliberate play-acting as being anti-establishment, a narrative of his own sacrifice and a series of exceptionally well-coordinated tantrums. Now, if that doesn’t sound familiar, I don’t know what does.
Nobody could ever accuse Mr Farage of being under-dramatic
Farage possibly hoped today was a ‘De Gaulle’s style moment. As the General was wont to do, Farage decided to circumnavigate the official investigations and the media and instead to broadcast directly to the general public. Flanked by two flags, he sought to address the question of his future in light of the allegations about dodgy financial dealings which have dogged him for weeks.
There was a lot of reference to ‘the way I’ve been treated’. Farage’s basic premise in the first half of his statement was that he is a uniquely ill-used politician, who has to suffer indignity everywhere he goes. Some of this may be the result of jealous mainstream parties and a corrupt media establishment as he claimed, but it is quite hard to work out exactly where Farage’s line for humiliation actually lies given that he was willing to go into the Celebrity Jungle and, perhaps worse, share a stage with a singing, sequinned Andrea Jenkyns.
