A year that started with man-of-the-people Farage using Blenheim Palace – Winston Churchill’s birthplace, a Unesco World Heritage site and one of England’s largest houses – as the backdrop for his new year’s message (he is pals with the 12th Duke of Marlborough, James Spencer-Churchill) ends with the Reform leader again escaping Clacton, this time to attend an Ashes test down under. And in between he spent an awful lot of time abroad, made an awful lot of money, watched his new councillors crash and burn in local government – and earned himself the title Rat of the Year.
In 2025, Farage’s first full year as an MP, he spent about as much time in Clacton – and, indeed, the House of Commons, where he now boycotts prime minister’s questions in protest at a party with five MPs not getting a weekly question – as you’d expect. Rather, he has been spotted frolicking in France (during the week of a major UK-EU summit), watching F1 in Abu Dhabi, and giving evidence to a US congressional committee on the death of free speech in the UK (coincidentally at the same time as Reform councillors in Nottinghamshire were banning the local press).
Meanwhile, the number of new Reform councillors suspended or resigning continues to grow, with around one in 18 having gone since being elected in May, sparking costly by-elections. Those who remain are making an absolute hash of it, particularly in Kent – Reform’s “shop window” into how it would perform in government – where the governing group has descended into infighting, blame game-ing and raising taxes they vowed to slash.
Farage himself has spent recent weeks angrily denying allegations about his schoolboy racism, allegations that at least rescued him from much more pertinent questions about his relationship with Nathan Gill, the jailed former Wales leader and corrupt recipient of Russian bribes who Farage unaccountably didn’t know and hadn’t met, despite the wealth of photographs of them on the campaign trail together and sitting together in the European Parliament.
Not that Farage himself would ever need to give speeches for Putin for a few grand a pop. Since becoming an MP last year, he has banked north of £1m from his work outside parliament, on top of the £93,904 he receives from what many would consider to be his job. Last month alone, he declared a whopping £207,000 in pay for October from his varied network of commercial interests. It included one of £135,000 from Direct Bullion, the gold firm for which Farage acts as a brand ambassador, for an estimated four hours over three months.
So, Nigel Farage – Rat of the Year. You’re welcome!
