Nigel Farage's US jaunts and GB News gig do not bode well for people of Clacton: Jayne Dowle
Someone in America perhaps, seeing as it’s reported that in September Farage is planning his third visit across the Atlantic since he was elected MP, to speak at a dinner for a right-wing think-tank where tables cost up to $50,000 (£38,000) each to reserve.
Farage is listed as the main speaker at a benefit event for the Heartland Institute, an Illinois-based organisation which denies human-created climate change. Its president, James Taylor, who is also speaking, has called climate change “a sham”. As extreme weather storms are known to wreak havoc along the Essex coast, I wonder what his constituents think to that.
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Hide AdFarage first raised post-election eyebrows when he jetted off to the Republican national convention in Milwaukee two weeks after the general election. It’s said that a Reform UK donor paid for Farage and “a staffer” to fly over to lend his support to his mate Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in the aftermath of an attempted assassination attempt.


Last weekend, Farage was tabled as the keynote speaker in a ‘Keep Arizona Free Summit’ in Scottdale, Arizona, reportedly having been paid an upfront deposit of nearly £12,000 for his contribution to an event that promises to fight for pro-growth, free market policies in the state.
When tackled by reporters about his jet-setting habits, Farage bridled, insisting that he’s in his constituency “a couple of days a week which is about as much as most MPs, I would have thought”.
Tellingly, he did admit that despite his millions – he’s believed to earn more than £1m a year from non-parliamentary work - he’s not quite managed to find a place to live in Clacton yet, “but that takes a bit of time and that’s in the process, as we speak.”
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Hide AdOr perhaps that contract Farage talks about is with the listeners of GB Radio and the readers of a broadsheet newspaper? Mr Farage has recently denied being paid almost £100,000 a month to present a show on GB News.
Controversy came as he declared his income across various jobs in the published Parliamentary Register of Interest, including writing for the Daily Telegraph and recording personalised video messages.
Shouldn’t there be rules against MPs doing this kind of thing, when constituents are crying out for help? One local woman, speaking to reporters, said Clacton had never had the best reputation and pointed out that she thought the seaside town’s new MP had “made us a laughing stock. It is so run down. The children can’t use the local park because of the drugs paraphernalia and broken glass.”
So much for that Reform UK manifesto pledge to give drug dealers life imprisonment.
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Hide AdLike many British coastal towns, Clacton suffers from poor quality jobs and high levels of ill-health and deprivation. More so than more affluent constituencies, it needs all the help it can get.
As another local said, “our town needs investment. Better jobs, better schools and more opportunities. I don’t think he will find any of that for us in Arizona.”
Farage must have known that local people felt let down and left out of national mainstream politics and believed that traditional parties were simply not listening to their concerns. It was especially cynical of him to stand for election in a town where he must have calculated on immense populist support.
To leave those who voted for him hanging so soon into his tenure as a MP is particularly galling. It does not bode well for the future; if he can spend all this time in the US now, just a few weeks into the job, how is it going to be in years to come, when the appeal of a freebie across the Atlantic holds even more enticement than a constituency surgery on a cold, damp winter night?
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Hide AdIt’s selfish, sure, but it also undermines all the good work dedicated MPs, of all parties, do in their own constituencies and runs the risk of sowing further seeds of distrust between the public and politicians.
Perhaps Farage is getting his trips in and earning some pin money before parliament reconvenes in the autumn. Meanwhile the Prime Minister cancels his planned family holiday to Europe to sweat out August dealing with the aftermath of the race riots and the threats to global security swirling in the Middle East, Iran and Russia.
Keir Starmer has faced his own lambasting from some quarters for his hair-shirt approach, but above all, he does realise that British politics is a serious business and demands 24/7 attention. The last person to forget this was that other populist clown, Boris Johnson. And we all know what happened to him.
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