Page 95 - Monocle Quarterly Journal Vol 1 Issue 1 Q4

Nigel Farage: The Life and Death of a Career in Heckling
BY DAVID BUCKHAM
At the very moment that David Cameron met with the 27 remaining leaders of the European Union on the fourth oor of the European Parliament in Brussels, Nigel Farage, a key
proponent of the Brexit campaign, took co ee and a pint just two oors below in the bar of the same building.
In and of itself this act was harmless. Perhaps he was simply taking a moment of quiet from the carnage around him. e FTSE and European markets in general were in freefall; sterling had lost near 10 percent of its value against the dollar in a single day. People, Europeans they called themselves, were marching on the British Parliament and had painted themselves blue. Scotland was to secede from Great Britain, and the spectre of violent discontent was now a newly awakened ogre that might re-emerge from its grave in Northern Ireland. Ultra right-wing leaders in Holland, Norway and France were already sprouting proposed referendums to further break up the European project.
Nevertheless, Nigel Farage, having that same morning been regaling forth in Parliament at his slothful peers (none of you have done a ‘proper job’ in your lives, he told them), took refreshments in the very place he most loathed. Odd, one might say, cynical perhaps. He had made quite a speech. In the context of his seventeen years within the European Parliament, however, his speech was no more than an ordinary day’s work. It was vitriolic, patronising, and childishly insulting, nothing out of the ordinary.
Jean-Claude Juncker, Head of the European Parliament, could take it no longer. With some impatience, and with typical brevity, he posed a simple question. “Why are you here?” he actually asked. Twice. Farage then left the hallowed hall in which Europe had been shaped. He went straight to the in-house restaurant, whilst Cameron was left to pick up the pieces.
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