Nigel Farage Loves Migrants – As Long As They Travel By Private Jet

On Friday, Cameo star, GB News presenter, occasional MP and party leader Nigel Farage will speak at the Reform UK annual conference. In a promo video Farage says the event will be “big rah rah – huge celebration of our breakthrough in British politics.”

While toasting Lee Anderson’s successful re-election sounds like great fun, Novara Media sadly won’t be able to join as our requests for accreditation got rejected, with no reason given. But it’s fair to assume that as well as the party atmosphere and general democratic spirit, there will be a lot of wailing about those pesky migrants who are to blame for all of our woes.

The following week, Farage will speak at a rather different event: “the world’s foremost gathering of global citizens discussing second citizenship, legal offshore tax strategies, international investing, and the Nomad Capitalist lifestyle.”

Nomad Capitalist offers its clients “bespoke, holistic strategies for successful investors and entrepreneurs to legally reduce their tax bills, diversify and protect their assets, become global citizens and maximize their freedom”. So according to Farage migration is fine, actually, just so long as you do it because you’re so rich that you’re hitting a higher tax bracket. Enough with these piddling small boats, we need BIG luxury yachts, come on people!

Held in a hotel in Kuala Lumpur chosen for its “colonial era charm”, the Nomad Capitalist event is “the best place to meet and mingle with like-minded freedom seekers and visionaries,” says the promotional blurb for the event. And what a vision it is. Attendees will also get a chance to hear from speakers on such topics as “How to find a relationship in Eastern Europe and/or use its cultural differences to build your relationship”, “how to give birth overseas for citizenship” and “how to earn profits from chaos”. A three step life plan if ever I’ve heard one.

Farage will speak on “How to avoid bank account cancel culture and the future of the West.” Usually he would rail against “globalists”, but if globalism means anything it is surely Nomad Capitalist – “A haven for global citizens yearning for tax freedom and boundless opportunity beyond borders.”

Andrew Henderson, the company’s founder, tells people to “go where you’re treated best”. Choosing what country to live in is like buying a new washing machine: “We’re told – ‘the people where you’re from, that’s your identity’ – and it’s not human nature at all. If you go to a restaurant you expect good service. If you go to a shop you expect a good deal.” Sometimes this is presented in a kind of utopian, internationalist libertarian way, at other times it’s alarmist: One Henderson’s recent videos is entitled “How to escape the UK RIGHT NOW”. Either way, it’s hard to square with Farage’s listing for the event as “Mr Brexit”.

This is one of many examples of Farage’s well paid moonlighting and absenteeism which see him at ease at this luxury watch convention. In August it was revealed that he gets paid nearly £100,000 a month for his GB News show and £4,000 a month to write for the Telegraph and almost £17,000 from Cameo appearances.

The former commodities trader is used to having a fair bit of kaplinky lying about, and it may have skewed his perspective. Interviewed by Andrew Henderson, founder of Nomad Capital in May, Farage laid out the problems people in the UK face: “Think about this. You’re a young person, you’re 26, 27 years old, you’re well qualified. You’re working in Canary Wharf in London for one of the big accounting companies or whatever it is. You’ve gone a couple of steps up the ladder, you’re earning £120,000 a year let’s say… you’re doing pretty well in life. Well, you should be doing pretty well in life” – but, sadly, the burden of tax is too high.

The supposedly onerous demands that the UK makes of its rich risks its position as a haven for the global elite, with an exodus of millionaires by 2028 apparently on the cards. Researchers say this will hardly impact economic growth, but Farage is concerned nonetheless. Maybe if the rich leave Britain they’ll stop paying him to speak at their weird conventions.

How any of this is speaking to the concerns of the ordinary voter in deprived Clacton is unclear. But it may not be as big a turn off for his supporters as you might imagine. Novara Media has previously noted how Farage is making an appeal to hustle culture – young individualistic men, “doers and achievers”. Farage’s constituents are not working in the City on six figures and moaning about how they pay too much tax, but in the absence of a more grounded political offering to improve their lives some of them might aspire to.

That absence is key. A forthcoming book Landslide: The inside story of the 2024 election, reveals that Labour made a calculated decision to give Reform a free pass at the election – hoping that the damage to the Tories would be worth it. It paid off, delivering a huge Labour landslide – which the government is using to enact yet more austerity. Farage’s hypocrisy is obvious, but that doesn’t matter if no one is willing to challenge him on it, or offer something better.