Nigel farage

On 29 March 2019 the Queen should have a state dinner and invite the European Union’s 27 heads of state and its five presidents. The evening’s purpose would be to toast the new alliance between the United Kingdom and the EU: one based on free trade, security cooperation and shared democratic values. This celebration of the new alliance will be especially welcome after two years of negotiations which are bound to be fraught and, at times, ugly. The complexity and the sums of money involved pretty much guarantee this. There is, though, a particular onus on Britain to keep things civil. We have chosen to end this failed relationship, so

So poisonous were the relations between Nigel Farage and Douglas Carswell that no-one will have been surprised at the latter’s resignation from Ukip, nor the pleasure it generated among Farage and his supporters. It takes something to cheer the departure of your only MP; along with the funding that goes with it. Yet the irony is that in theory Farage and Carswell ought to have been soulmates in Ukip. Both are naturally social conservatives but economic liberals. In contrast to many Ukip members, neither are attracted by protectionism or anti-globalisation – two sentiments which also unite many of Donald Trump’s supporters. From what we know about the political views of

A new week, a new drama for Ukip. Although Nigel Farage last month called for Douglas Carswell to be kicked out of the party for disloyalty over a knighthood, it’s Farage’s righthand man Arron Banks who has today been left out in the cold.  The Ukip donor says he has been pushed out of the party after his membership lapsed. On trying to rejoin, Banks was told that he had been suspended ‘apparently for saying the current leadership couldn’t knock the skin off a rice pudding’. In recent weeks, the millionaire donor has become increasingly critical of the party leadership — demanding to be made chairman after Paul Nuttall lost the Stoke by-election. The

The row about whether Douglas Carswell did or didn’t block Nigel Farage’s knighthood has sparked another bout of civil war within Ukip. But Mr S is pleased to report there could be a happy ending after all. On Russia Today (natch), the former Ukip leader had a taste of what it would be like to get his gong. Unfortunately for Farage, his ‘knighthood’ was given to him by a child dressed in a cape rather than the Queen. But at least Farage got to hear those magic words: ‘Arise Sir Nigel’. However, the happy moment may well have been dampened at the end when the child turned to Farage and said to

So, Ukip is finished. So says Matthew Parris in the Times this morning, as well as Marina Hyde in the Guardian – who takes Paul Nuttall’s declaration that he is ‘going nowhere’ in a slightly different way that he intended. The emerging narrative of Thursday’s by-elections is that Labour had an appalling night from which it will take years to recover, but that Ukip is finished for good. Even Farage has given up on his baby. As Matthew puts it: ‘Ukip’s driving spirits are concluding that the time approaches for the party to die’. I have no capital invested in Ukip. I don’t care a great deal whether it dies

James Forsyth discusses the by-election results with Fraser Nelson and Isabel Hardman: Labour has avoided total electoral disaster and held the Stoke Central seat with a relatively comfortable majority of 2,620. The Labour vote share in the seat was only marginally down on the 2015 general election, which while not good for an opposition party does suggests that Brexit hasn’t taken as big a chunk out of Labour’s support in Leave voting seats as some are suggesting. Labour are trying to argue that their victory here marks a turning point in their attempt to see off the Ukip threat to them in Brexit voting seats in the Midlands and the

Although Paul Nuttall made a quick escape from today’s Ukip Spring Conference in order to avoid the pesky press, compared with Douglas Carswell it was an admirable effort. Mr S understands that Ukip’s only MP has deigned not to bother turning up today. While there are over 25 Ukip politicians speaking at the event, Carswell will not be one of them. Instead the MP for Clacton will appear through the medium of video — opting to record a video message rather than make the journey up North. While Nuttall has promised to give Labour a run for its money in the party’s traditional heartlands, Mr S suspects the message would hold a

On Wednesday afternoon I went to the British embassy in Washington for ‘a tea and champagne reception’ to mark the inauguration of President Trump. Like most institutions, the embassy has struggled to come to terms with the Donald. We all know (thanks to Twitter) that Trump wants Nigel Farage to be the UK representative in DC, which must leave the current ambassador, Sir Kim Darroch, feeling a bit tense. Still, Sir Kim managed to draw some big Republican beasts to his party: Ted Cruz, Chris Christie, Rand Paul and Newt Gingrich to name but four. Everybody said the special relationship was very special — they would, wouldn’t they? — and

Washington, D.C. Nigel Farage’s 2016 celebration of Nigel Farage’s 2016 is a party that might never stop. And it is a jolly affair. Yesterday, at the Hay-Adams Hotel, in Washington, DC, Nigel and his pals — let’s call them the champagne populists — had a US election bash. Nigel stood up to do his usual routine about how this year would be remembered in a hundred years as the glorious moment when nation state democracy reasserted itself, and everybody cheered.  The champagne populists raised lots of glasses to themselves and talked about how they got Donald J Trump elected to the White House. Meanwhile, the American voters who actually elected Donald

Kipling wrote about Brexit first, you know: “It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation, To puff and look important and to say: Though we know we should defeat you, We have not the time to meet you. We will therefore pay you cash to go away.” That, in essence, was David Cameron’s approach to the eurosceptics within his own party. Promise to pay just enough to keep them satisfied in the hope they would not then be emboldened to come back for more. But, as Kipling knew: “And that is called paying the Dane-geld; But we’ve proved it again and again, That if once you have