1) Do what disgraced former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie suggested in a recent GB News column and return the problematic £5m “gift” to his Thailand-based crypto-billionaire pal Christopher Harborne, thus showing that Farage – unlike certain other politicians who he can’t name for legal reasons – can’t be bought. Sure, he may need to change his retirement plans, sell a few houses or take a few extra shifts ritually humiliating himself on Cameo for spare change. But sometimes, if you want to save Britain, that’s the price you have to pay!
2) Alternatively, he could keep the money, quit as leader, flog Reform off to the highest bidder, and tell an ungrateful electorate to go fuck itself.
3) Keep the money, not quit as Reform leader, but aggressively go after the crypto industry in general and Christopher Harborne in particular to show that, really, he can’t be bought. That one might actually work, electorally – the party’s proposed “Cryptoassets and Digital Finance Bill” has mysteriously disappeared from its otherwise policy-light website – but whether it works on a “continuing to attract large gifts from passing philanthropists” level remains to be seen. Might be a good idea to block Harborne’s phone number first, too.
4) The John Stonehouse Strategy. Through nothing more complicated than a network of bank accounts under false identities and a mysterious pile of clothes on a beach, Farage could avoid political and financial embarrassment alike, fake his own death and quietly disappear. Although Farage, of course, has never seemed like a man who actually wants to quietly disappear. So perhaps he may wish to try:
5) The Reggie Perrin strategy. Essentially the same, except he comes back with a new identity and an unconvincing beard. The advantage of this one is that it allows him to remarry his wife. Alternatively, there’s…
6) The Rene Artois strategy. Doesn’t even need a disguise: he could just pop up one day claiming to be his own twin brother, Neville Farage, and then go on much as before. Could still remarry his wife, though.
7) The Bane Strategy. Do all his interviews going forward in the costume and voice of Bane out of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. Literally no one will ask about the donations any more.
8) Claim he’s mysteriously lost his memory. When pushed to elaborate, say he can’t remember.
9) Claim asylum.
10) Stay in Washington DC and decline to be interviewed by anyone but American journalists, who won’t ask difficult questions about the assorted financial scandals by virtue of the fact they don’t really understand Britain exists.
11) Deal with hostile interviews the way Mel Brooks dealt with hostile studios: say he entirely agrees with the public, that it’s absolutely unconscionable that a candidate to be prime minister should accept such donations, that he will definitely be repaying every penny… then keep the money and just assume no one’s going to check.
12) Give a heart-rending interview in which he says a big boy took the money, then bursts into tears. Dismiss Richard Tice without explanation the very next day.
13) Hide in a fridge.
14) Hide Robert Jenrick in a fridge.*
15) Airily point out that £5m barely buys you anything these days anyway. Then start talking about property prices, or Elon Musk.
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But what about my leftish legitimate concerns?
16) Issue a statement announcing that he’s Nigel Farage, that everyone knows he always gets away with stuff, and thus demanding that the press stop wasting their time trying to make it stick to it and focus on the real issues facing the British public, like small boats.
17) Give another round of interviews in which he’s visibly irritated with both interviewer and electorate, in which he says that it’s his money, that he can spend it on Ferraris if he wants, and that it’s none of the public’s business, so eff off. Maybe, this time, it’ll work.
*Universally applicable suggestion.
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