Farage, then MEP, speaking at the 2018 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). (Photo credit: flickr/Gage Skidmore/CC BY-SA2.0)
Farage told Britain’s Daily Telegraph on March 6 that he intends not to run for elected office, but that he will not enter retirement.
In a weekend interview on the Chopper’s Politics podcast, Farage announced that he is stepping down as leader of the Reform Party, turning away from politics after three decades of political street battles.
He said, “There is no turning back – Britain’s exit from the European Union is complete. This will not be reversed. I know I’ve come back (to politics) once or twice when people thought I’d left, but this is a real exit.”
Farage had a high-profile exit from politics after the 2016 EU referendum, saying, “I want my Life back,” but used his dissatisfaction with the way the government handled the Brexit negotiations to reform the Leave party two years later, in 2018.
He added: “Now is the Time for me to say I’ve knocked on the last door. I’m resigning as leader of Reform Party UK. I will have no executive position at all. I would be happy to have an honorary position, but party politics, campaigning, being involved in elections, is now over for me because I have achieved the one thing I set out to do: to achieve independence for Britain.”
Using Self-Media to Fight Communism
Specifically, Farage points to the high level of Chinese Communist involvement in British politics and the influence of a leftist ideology he calls the “woke agenda” in Britain.
Farage, 56, insists he has no plans to retire, saying, “I’m not packing my bags, I’m not going to play golf four afternoons a week and have a half a glass of bitter afterwards. That’s not going to happen.” Instead, he will try to influence the national debate about the influence of the Chinese Communist Party in Britain and the battle over the so-called Culture war.
He says he wants to “go to war” on two “very big” issues: “One is the extent to which the Chinese Communist Party has taken over our lives and certainly has had an undue influence on our country. And the other thing [is] the ‘awakening agenda’ – literally, our children have been indoctrinated from elementary school all the way through college with what is now a completely different interpretation of history.”
“I see our community more divided than ever by this agenda. And I’m very concerned about that. I want to fight all of these things. I’ve built up a pretty big social media platform over the years. I’ve had influence. So I want to continue to influence the debate. I want to go out and change the debate. And, I can do that without going out and getting involved in the election.”
Farage told the Joe Pyle podcast that he wouldn’t miss running “a rebellious anti-establishment group” and having to raise money and discipline candidates and supporters. He likened running the UK Independence Party to the bitter Zoom meetings held at Handforth Parish Council, where clips of the local council’s Zoom meetings were wildly circulated on social media in January after millions marveled at the way the council’s convener, clerk Jackie Weaver, controlled a raucous meeting at the Zoom meeting and It was covered by major media in the UK and around the world.
He said, “Every month (meeting) in the UK Independence Party is like this, but so are the National Executive Committee meetings for 25 years. But just dealing with it aggressively. I’ve had to deal with that and deal with a very hostile media (environment).”
When asked what advice he would give to other new parties, he said, “In politics, the biggest quality you need to lead a rebel party is patience. You have to wait for the right moment.”
He added: “You have to bide your time, you have to somehow be oblivious to all the criticism. The really hard part is that it affects the people around you, your Family, your children.”
No regrets about supporting Trump (Trump)
In a March 2017 interview with the BBC, Farage said he and Trump have one thing in common, “We are probably the two people most vilified by the West [the media].” Their bond, he added, was forged in the “flurry of abuse” each received.
Farage said on his You Tube channel in January after Trump left office that he did not regret his support for Trump. Farage has been invited by Trump to speak at his campaign rallies twice, once in October 2016 and again in October 2020. He compared Trump supporters, much like Leave supporters, to ordinary grassroots people with no big media, big tech or big companies to back them up.
Doing real work indifferent to fame and fortune
Farage paid tribute to the late Sunday Telegraph columnist Christopher Booker for telling Farage the morning after he was first elected to the European Parliament in 1999: “You have to decide now whether you are in politics because you want to do something, or whether you are in politics because you want to make a name for yourself. “
He said it was an “honor” to lead the UK Independence Party, which eventually put enough pressure on then-Prime Minister David Cameron to hold the EU referendum in 2016.
Brexit was a grassroots revolt, and it was an honor to lead those grassroots,” Farage said. In a country where no one with any real influence advocated leaving the EU, we still came to the point of holding a referendum. And that’s a remarkable thing.”
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