Wednesday, September 30, 2026
Farage fails the cool, calm leadership test
When it comes to Nigel Farage's reaction to the arrest of five men on suspicion of terror offences near RAF Fairford, Marina Hyde in the Guardian hits the nail on the head. She says that for a guy who supposedly valorises the wartime British spirit, Nigel would genuinely have had to have been interned during that conflict on account of his serial predilection for spreading panic and unverified information at any given chance.
She adds that the weekend incident near RAF Fairford was simply the latest in a long line of occasions that make you suspect the poster on the wall at Reform HQ reads simply: “Lose Cool and Start Shit-posting.”
As the Independent points out, the Reform UK leader suggested that the incident at RAF Fairford, in Gloucestershire, could be linked to the small boats crossings in a post on Sunday, hours after five men were arrested on suspicion of explosives offences and terrorism after three vans were found near the airbase which is used by the US:
He said in a post on X: “I have been warning both in and out of Parliament for many months about Iranian agents coming into the UK via small boats across the Channel. We deserve to be told the truth about the Fairford bomb plotters’ identities.”
Mr Farage shared a video on Monday then reaffirming his concerns that Iran was using small boats crossing the channel to get their operatives to the UK, despite police warnings against speculation.
He said: “Over the course of this year, I had intelligence that told me that the Iranian regime was using the boats crossing the Channel to get their operatives into Britain. That literally we were allowing people to come in who may well end up killing many of our own people.”
Counter Terrorism Policing reported an hour later that the five suspects were British nationals: a 24-year-old from Camden, north London; three men aged 23, 24 and 25 from Westminster, central London, and one aged 24 from Willesden, north-west London.
Culture secretary Lisa Nandy told the Guardian at the Labour party conference on Monday that Farage was a “master of the conspiracy theory” when asked about his comments.
“I think that he’s good at using the very real sentiment that a lot of people feel, of anxiety and distrust,” she said. “Particularly in this era of mis- and disinformation, I think he’s very agile at exploiting that for political gain.”
But back to Marina Hyde:
Many of you may find you have a low tolerance for shrieks of “We have the right to know absolutely everything, immediately!” from a congenitally secretive guy who notoriously declined to declare the £5m he was given from a Thai-based crypto-billionaire and, since that weird “gift” has been uncovered, has been in a prolonged tantrum that has caused him to snap at any attempts to discover more about what might have motivated it. “None of your business,” ran one particularly ill-judged attempt by Farage to put the issue to bed. “What’s it got to do with you?”
I do find my finger hovering over the “What’s it got to do with you?’ button with increasing regularity when Farage appears on screen to insert himself into moments of obviously active sensitivity. The clearly nuanced and potentially complex Fairford investigation – still ongoing, despite the release on bail of the five men arrested – was a case in point, although on Monday Nigel did attempt to set it out in a madly precipitous video on what he called “the Fairford plot”, captioned: “Fairford proves my point on Iran and the IRGC.” Does it? OK, thanks Jack Ryan.
Anyone who judges that this intemperate psychological liability should have access to the nuclear codes and other top-level information must have a subconscious wish for their answer to the question “where do you see yourself in five years’ time?” to be “living in Britain’s catacombs and distilling drinking water from my own urine”. It’s unclear whether a Prime Minister Farage would just bottle everything or shoot first and ask questions later, but the most likely metaphorical outcome in any given scenario may well be him shooting the wrong person first, then refusing to answer questions later.
Furthermore, as always with Nigel, it’s worth highlighting his insistence on rising to only the occasions from which he feels he might personally benefit. And so it is that he will have an awful lot to say about the horrific murder of Henry Nowak, but nothing or next to about those of Jo Cox or Sarah Everard. Whatever may or may not have happened at Fairford feeds into what we have to call, with heavy irony, his two-tier approach to public life. After all, for a guy who supposedly worries about illegal activity that could bear the hallmarks of foreign sponsorship, Farage strangely didn’t have a lot to say about the Ukrainian and Romanian nationals who were recruited via a Russian-speaking pseudonymous Telegram user to commit arson on property connected to Keir Starmer and on a car he had previously owned, back when Starmer was prime minister. Even after they were found guilty, the Reform leader didn’t seem to find this sort of darkly intriguing activity worthy of comment. Things he did find worthy of comment that same month included disputes over flying the St George’s cross flag and AI scam videos.
The thing about attaining the very highest office in the land is that you have to be prime minister of all the things, all the time. It is difficult to see how someone as cynically selective as Farage could somehow become the sort of leader able to speak for a nation. Or, just as importantly, the sort of leader able to realise when it’s time to shut up for a nation.
Far more troubling still is the gathering sense that Farage is too mentally weak for the role, and would go to pieces in very short order once plunged into the realities of life in Downing Street. Perhaps his declining poll ratings mean worrying may be unnecessary. But he’s increasingly a set of walking psychological red flags: emotional, quick to temper, incapable of rising above the self-serving.
Clearly, Farage is not fit for the office he aspires too.
As the Independent points out, the Reform UK leader suggested that the incident at RAF Fairford, in Gloucestershire, could be linked to the small boats crossings in a post on Sunday, hours after five men were arrested on suspicion of explosives offences and terrorism after three vans were found near the airbase which is used by the US:
He said in a post on X: “I have been warning both in and out of Parliament for many months about Iranian agents coming into the UK via small boats across the Channel. We deserve to be told the truth about the Fairford bomb plotters’ identities.”
Mr Farage shared a video on Monday then reaffirming his concerns that Iran was using small boats crossing the channel to get their operatives to the UK, despite police warnings against speculation.
He said: “Over the course of this year, I had intelligence that told me that the Iranian regime was using the boats crossing the Channel to get their operatives into Britain. That literally we were allowing people to come in who may well end up killing many of our own people.”
Counter Terrorism Policing reported an hour later that the five suspects were British nationals: a 24-year-old from Camden, north London; three men aged 23, 24 and 25 from Westminster, central London, and one aged 24 from Willesden, north-west London.
Culture secretary Lisa Nandy told the Guardian at the Labour party conference on Monday that Farage was a “master of the conspiracy theory” when asked about his comments.
“I think that he’s good at using the very real sentiment that a lot of people feel, of anxiety and distrust,” she said. “Particularly in this era of mis- and disinformation, I think he’s very agile at exploiting that for political gain.”
But back to Marina Hyde:
Many of you may find you have a low tolerance for shrieks of “We have the right to know absolutely everything, immediately!” from a congenitally secretive guy who notoriously declined to declare the £5m he was given from a Thai-based crypto-billionaire and, since that weird “gift” has been uncovered, has been in a prolonged tantrum that has caused him to snap at any attempts to discover more about what might have motivated it. “None of your business,” ran one particularly ill-judged attempt by Farage to put the issue to bed. “What’s it got to do with you?”
I do find my finger hovering over the “What’s it got to do with you?’ button with increasing regularity when Farage appears on screen to insert himself into moments of obviously active sensitivity. The clearly nuanced and potentially complex Fairford investigation – still ongoing, despite the release on bail of the five men arrested – was a case in point, although on Monday Nigel did attempt to set it out in a madly precipitous video on what he called “the Fairford plot”, captioned: “Fairford proves my point on Iran and the IRGC.” Does it? OK, thanks Jack Ryan.
Anyone who judges that this intemperate psychological liability should have access to the nuclear codes and other top-level information must have a subconscious wish for their answer to the question “where do you see yourself in five years’ time?” to be “living in Britain’s catacombs and distilling drinking water from my own urine”. It’s unclear whether a Prime Minister Farage would just bottle everything or shoot first and ask questions later, but the most likely metaphorical outcome in any given scenario may well be him shooting the wrong person first, then refusing to answer questions later.
Furthermore, as always with Nigel, it’s worth highlighting his insistence on rising to only the occasions from which he feels he might personally benefit. And so it is that he will have an awful lot to say about the horrific murder of Henry Nowak, but nothing or next to about those of Jo Cox or Sarah Everard. Whatever may or may not have happened at Fairford feeds into what we have to call, with heavy irony, his two-tier approach to public life. After all, for a guy who supposedly worries about illegal activity that could bear the hallmarks of foreign sponsorship, Farage strangely didn’t have a lot to say about the Ukrainian and Romanian nationals who were recruited via a Russian-speaking pseudonymous Telegram user to commit arson on property connected to Keir Starmer and on a car he had previously owned, back when Starmer was prime minister. Even after they were found guilty, the Reform leader didn’t seem to find this sort of darkly intriguing activity worthy of comment. Things he did find worthy of comment that same month included disputes over flying the St George’s cross flag and AI scam videos.
The thing about attaining the very highest office in the land is that you have to be prime minister of all the things, all the time. It is difficult to see how someone as cynically selective as Farage could somehow become the sort of leader able to speak for a nation. Or, just as importantly, the sort of leader able to realise when it’s time to shut up for a nation.
Far more troubling still is the gathering sense that Farage is too mentally weak for the role, and would go to pieces in very short order once plunged into the realities of life in Downing Street. Perhaps his declining poll ratings mean worrying may be unnecessary. But he’s increasingly a set of walking psychological red flags: emotional, quick to temper, incapable of rising above the self-serving.
Clearly, Farage is not fit for the office he aspires too.
