Nigel Farage

Who is Nigel Farage?

Nigel Paul Farage is a British politician and leader of the UK Independence Party since 2010, a position he also held from September 2006 to November 2009. Since 1999 he has been a Member of the European Parliament for South East England, and he co-chairs the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy group.

Farage was a founding member of UKIP, having left the Conservative Party in 1992 after the signing of the Maastricht Treaty. Having unsuccessfully campaigned in European and Westminster parliamentary elections for UKIP since 1994, he won a seat as MEP for South East England in the 1999 European Parliament Election – the first year the regional list system was used – and was re-elected in 2004, 2009, and 2014.

In September 2006, Farage became the UKIP Leader and led the party through the 2009 European Parliament Election when it received the second-highest share of the popular vote, defeating Labour and the Liberal Democrats with over two million votes. He stepped down in November 2009 to concentrate on contesting the seat of the Speaker, John Bercow, at the 2010 general election. Farage failed to defeat Bercow, coming third in the Buckingham constituency.