Nigel Farage is not establishment

As I was whittling away what’s left of my youth arguing on the internet about the legal wisdom in speculating about Ann Widdecombe’s murder, my opponent broke off to address a passing diss about Nigel Farage, her former boss. “I’d be careful,” they said. “He has friends in low places.”

The Clacton MP has never kept the most salubrious company, but recent findings from the British press seem to justify its old moniker, Grub Street. Initial finger-pointing about a £5m gift from cryptocurrency investor Christopher Harborne has been followed by questions around George Cottrell, an aristocrat once jailed in the US for fraud who has reportedly gifted Farage security, social media advice, and accommodation costs.

Farage’s decision to call a by-election only makes sense if it’s to secure a democratic trump card against these allegations, which continue to be investigated by the parliamentary authorities. The narrow claim is that he broke the rules on declaring donations; the bigger claim is that his political agenda may be unduly influenced by these shadowy men — Farage having the bearing of a man who has been ducking into smoke-filled rooms since before puberty hit.

Anger has nonetheless shifted from how deeply he’s been filling his boots to the more comfortable zone of British class politics. While deciding whether Farage is guilty of something will entail ponderous trawling through documents, and even prising apart dusty parliamentary scripts, everyone can have an opinion on the vital topic of the day: is Farage the establishment?

This was admittedly brought on by Farage and his Reform goons explicitly framing the by-election as a people versus the establishment affair. This provoked an apoplectic response from Jon Sopel, co-host of dissident podcast The News Agents, who furiously noted that Nige: “is the son of a stockbroker who went to Dulwich College and then follows his dad into the city” before his entry into a decades-long career in politics. “He is the establishment,” Sopel howled into the Twitter void.

This line of questioning was echoed by Sopel’s old employer, the Beeb, in an interview with the obscure leader of Reform Wales. A similar jibe was made by Marina Hyde — daughter of Sir Alastair Edgcumbe James Dudley-Williams, 2nd Baronet — who noted that the Harrovian Laurence Fox has also entered the race in Clacton. The future of British politics is “a load of public-school guys” exchanging allegations of establishment behaviour, she said, though as Hyde herself is an alumnus of the independent Downe House School, sex is clearly no barrier to entry.

To declare an interest, I too was privately educated, albeit in Croydon — a South London borough most notable for the burning down of a furniture store during the England riots of 2011. According to Guardian convention, I am the establishment. Had I not ruthlessly squandered my education I’d be cutting deals with obscenely wealthy sheikhs in a private members’ club in Mayfair, rather than passively-aggressively listing other journalists’ schools to undermine their credibility.

And yet this view of “the establishment” rather misses something beyond my contribution to downward social mobility. Commenting on the Cambridge Five scandal in the Spectator piece that popularised the term, Henry Fairlie wrote: “The exercise of power in Britain (more specifically, in England) cannot be understood unless it is recognised that it is exercised socially.” This is the world of the raised eyebrow, or the much-maligned “good chap” theory of government, where social relationships steer events, not formal structures.

Farage’s critics are not wrong about how silver-spooned Farage’s life has been but mistaken to think this much matters. Farage is a hero among reactionaries, and a devil to almost everyone else. His social status is only high among tradesmen, crypto bros and voters disillusioned with the uniparty behaviour of Labour and the Tories these past 30 years.

Because as Laurence Fox could tell you, being posh is not the same as being close to power. No doubt there are some shady businessmen making their influence felt in the UK. The Duke of Westminster probably meets important people more regularly than the guy who tends to his garden, and that’s not nothing. 

But among most of the people who actually run the country, his name is mud. For all that he can bring the founder of BrewDog to his birthday bash, Farage is generally repulsive to the public servants, NGO workers and quangocrats who are in power whoever is in office. Three civil servants I know are all making exit plans for if a Reform government comes to power, if they are not mooting the idea of sticking around solely as an exercise in sabotage.

Calling Farage “the establishment” is tired and misleading. It flatters the people actually in charge

To remind you, these are the kinds of people comfortable letting in millions of largely unvetted migrants. They have slowly allowed the housing market to strangle the economy, while handing out money to anybody except those who might grow the economy. They’ve skimped on defence spending and are surprised when a real invasion happens in Europe.

This would be less infuriating if while doing it the elite admitted they are a new aristocracy: one founded on a non-traditional set of inherited values, status symbols and procedures, yes, but an aristocracy nonetheless. Being a product of the Blob is not quite the same as being a product of a bloodline but it can involve similar dynamics.

In that context, calling Farage “the establishment” is tired and misleading. It flatters the people actually in charge, while duping voters about how the country works. Sopel, Hyde et al should admit that their people have been running the country for a good 30 years now, and while Farage is mercenary, temperamental and unpleasant, it may be time for somebody else to have a go.