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FarageWatch issue 1 – Web edition
NIGEL FARAGE: “MAN OF THE PEOPLE”? OR MAN OF THE WEALTHY PEOPLE?
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Farage’s MPs vote AGAINST more rights for you at work
- 72%+ of public back new protections for 15m workers
- But Reform UK stick to their anti-worker stance
MULTIMILLIONAIRE Nigel Farage’s carefully cultivated image as “a man of the people” faces new questions.
All of Mr Farage’s Reform UK MPs voted against the Employment Rights Bill – expected to improve conditions for 15 million workers.
The proposal for new laws which Reform UK opposed is set to:
- Extend statutory sick pay and protection from unfair dismissal from day one.
- Give every worker the right to request flexible hours or patterns of work.
- End zero-hours contracts by requiring contracts to reflect regular hours worked.
Between 72% and 74% of the public support each of these measures, found a 2025 poll.
But Reform’s last manifesto said: “We must make it easier to hire and fire so that businesses can grow.”
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Reform UK’s tax cuts promise: Bonanza for the rich… Crumbs for the struggling
Far more to richest 10% than lower-earning HALF
REFORM UK proposed two cuts to Income Tax at the last General Election. The £59bn cost to the Treasury would have brought by far the largest gains to the richest households. Meanwhile lower-income households would have seen little change, found the independent Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR).
The top 10% of households stood to gain £5,980 a year – but the bottom 10% only £230.
Per £1 in tax cuts, the richest tenth would take 28p, but the lower-earning half only 18p.
Reform now say they’d cut spending before taxes.
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Who’s bankrolling Reform UK… and why?
REFORM UK has received almost £5 million from wealthy donors since 2023, including:
- c£600,000 from OFFSHORE TAX-AVOIDERS
Reform UK policy: Allow non-doms (UK residents who officially live abroad for tax purposes) to avoid some UK taxes for 10 years at a time, in return for a one-off fee
- £390,000 from OIL & GAS INDUSTRY lobbyists/investors
Reform UK policy: Scrap ‘Net Zero’ climate targets, stop green energy projects, and ‘drill baby, drill‘
- £274,000 from HEDGE FUND BOSS David Lilley
Hedge funds can and do make money by betting on price rises and currency falls.
Reform UK policy: “Scrap thousands of laws that hold back British business”
NIGEL FARAGE: “PATRIOT”? OR PUPPET?
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Reform UK’s ex-leader in Wales admits taking Russian bribes
- Nathan Gill pleads guilty in court
- Made pro-Kremlin speeches & appearances for Russian cash
- Sat alongside Farage in European Parliament at time
NATHAN Gill – Reform UK’s former leader in Wales, previously one of Nigel Farage’s fellow MEPs – has pleaded guilty in court to accepting bribes to make pro-Russia statements while serving in the European Parliament.
He is expected to be jailed.
Gill admitted receiving money from Oleg Voloshyn – “a pawn of Russian intelligence services”, say the US State Department.
Gill then made speeches and media appearances echoing the Kremlin line, and organised an event with a pro-Russian politician.
Gill had described Farage as a “friend and colleague”. This is one of numerous photos of them together.
This photo has also emerged of Farage with Voloshyn’s wife.
Farage denies any prior knowledge of the bribe to Gill.
Asked about his judgment of character, Mr Farage said: “Have you ever been let down by a person? Have you been let down and betrayed? Every single political party has a bad apple. In fact, many families finish up with a bad apple, these things happen.”
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Photos show Farage’s further Russian connections
Asked by a journalist in 2017 about his meetings with Russian officials, Mr Farage denied having had any. He then admitted to having met in 2013 the then Russian Ambassador, Alexander Yakovenko. The Russian Embassy website had published the above photo of the meeting.
This was one of Farage’s 17 appearances on RT (Russia Today), Russian state mouthpiece, between 2010 and 2014. He did not deny being paid. RT is now banned in the UK.
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The world leader Farage admires? “Putin – as an operator”
WHEN Nigel Farage was asked which world leader he admired, he replied: “Vladimir Putin. As an operator, but not as a human being.”
BBC Radio 5 Live pressed him to name what he had admired about “the murderous dictator”, Farage answered: “How many years has he been in power?”
In October 2025 the Telegraph published a column entitled: “NIGEL FARAGE HAS A RUSSIA PROBLEM“.
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Farage: West “provoked” Russia into invading Ukraine
NIGEL Farage drew criticism after suggesting the West had “provoked” Russia’s invasion of Ukraine through eastward expansion of NATO and the EU.
He told the BBC the war was “of course” Putin’s fault, but added the expansion had given the Russian president “a reason to tell his people ‘they’re coming for us again’”.
Former NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson told LBC: “That is total nonsense, and sort of typical of the far-right, of which Farage is part, cuddling up to the Kremlin with their propaganda.”
WHAT WOULD FARAGE’S BRITAIN BE LIKE?
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Farage: I’ve always stood behind Trump
NIGEL Farage boasted in September 2025: “I’m the only figure from… Parliament that has consistently stood behind Trump. I have never wavered in my thoughts or my views for one minute, even when it was an unpopular thing to do.”
So what does “standing behind Trump” mean, on:
MONEY? Trump promised to cut US grocery prices – he hasn’t. But he is slashing taxes for the very wealthiest 1%, while barely helping middle-earners, and making the poor poorer.
HEALTHCARE? Trump is cutting many people’s help with healthcare costs more than their taxes. Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has spread misinformation on vaccines, fired advisors, and cut vaccine research and promotion.
OTHER CUTS? To education, housing, transport, science, culture, conservation and more.
SAFETY? Trump is slashing regulations on corporations. He says climate change is a “hoax”.
DEMOCRACY & FREEDOM? Trump has threatened and defied judges over rulings he doesn’t like, targeted law firms and media outlets challenging him, censored universities’ curriculums by holding their funding ransom, and sent troops into US cities.
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Farage attacks NHS and says: If you can pay, you should pay
- Has repeatedly called for end to NHS funding from general taxation
- Warnings of “two-tier system”, “second-rate” care
NIGEL Farage said on Sky News in April 2025: “I do not want [the NHS] funded through general taxation. It doesn’t work. It’s not working.” Despite backtracking months later, Farage is on the record with similar comments back to 2012, when he said: “I think we’re going to have to move to an insurance-based system of healthcare.”
He said in 2024: “The funding of the NHS is a total failure. The French do it much better with less funding. There is a lesson there. If you can afford it, you pay; if you can’t, you don’t.”
In reality, expenditure in the French healthcare system is 21% higher per person than in the UK system. The independent Nuffield Trust say there is no magic fix without more investment.
In France, patients generally have to pay out of pocket for appointments and treatments, then claim reimbursement: usually 70% from the state and the rest from mandatory insurance.
Such processes add more costly, frustrating bureaucracy. 30% of US healthcare spending goes on administration.
Economist Richard Murphy warned Farage would implement a two-tier system where “the rich buy the best cover, others get a second-rate service”. The Nuffield Trust warned private insurers will try every trick to avoid covering those with serious risk factors.
83% of the UK public support keeping the NHS funded by general taxation, found the Health Foundation in September 2025.
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Farage’s No2: Slash public spending by 5x more than Truss’s plan
NIGEL Farage’s deputy has called for spending cuts equal to £274bn a year – more than five times the Truss government’s unfunded, turmoil-inducing plan.
Multimillionaire Richard Tice called for Government spending to fall from 45% of GDP to just 35%. Cuts on this scale would roughly equal the entire public funding of the NHS (£188.5bn a year), PLUS the Ministry of Defence, the Home Office, AND the Ministry of Justice.
Christina McAnea of UNISON said in 2023: “[We have] the longest NHS waiting lists in history, huge cuts to police forces and councils going bust. Care services are unable to deliver… Inmates are escaping overcrowded prisons and unsafe schools are crumbling. Britain is broken. When spending is slashed, services crumble.”
A study by London School of Economics found that 190,000 excess deaths in the UK were directly linked to austerity cuts between 2010 and 2019.
IS NIGEL FARAGE A GOOD MP?
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Nigel Farage MP rakes it in from TWELVE other jobs
Highest-earning MP – £1.2m since election
NIGEL Farage is paid £93,904 per year as MP for Clacton – a faded seaside town, with the UK’s poorest neighbourhood Jaywick. Yet he is finding time to do TWELVE other jobs on the side.
Between his election in Summer 2024 and October 2025, Mr Farage declared extra earnings of around £1.2 million [full list below].
This makes him the highest earning MP.
This does not include rental income from his £3m portfolio of three buy-to-let houses.
He has declared spending an average of 22 hours a week on these sidelines.
He told the BBC in August 2024: “There’s a lot going on and life isn’t about how much you spend doing each individual thing, it’s if you do that thing well.”
Full list of Nigel Farage’s jobs and earnings
MP for Clacton – £93,904/year
Gold Bullion ambassador for Direct Bullion – £280,500 for four hours’ work per month
Selling personalised videos on Cameo – £154,775.37
Speaking engagements:
- Nomad Capitalist – £40,075.37
- AZ Liberty – £25,303.55;
- Imperial Independent Media – £25,972.45
- Bitcoin for Corporations – £7,410
Commentator work on Sky News Australia – £25,368 for 19 hours over “several” months
Presenting a show on GB News – £479,993
“Influencer” fees on social media:
- Facebook & Instagram – £2,794.81
- X (formerly Twitter) – £13,556.43
- YouTube/Google – £18,530.89
Writing a column for the Daily Telegraph – £36,000
TOTAL – about £1.2m
(June 2024-October 2025)
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Farage in Parliament: Ranked bottom for voting, speaking… And no surgeries
NIGEL Farage spoke in Parliament far less often in his first year than any other British party leader – and turned up to vote less often too.
But he found time for five trips to the USA in his first six months as an MP. In March 2025 he headlined a Donald Trump fundraiser in Florida.
He also announced he won’t be holding face-to-face surgeries in Clacton – normally a key part of an MP’s job.
Mr Farage told reporters: “Do I have an office in Clacton? Yes. Am I allowing the public to flow through the door with their knives in their pockets? No, no I’m not.”
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Every fact reported in this Web newsletter comes with an embedded hyperlink to its media source.
FarageWatch issue 1‘s sources include the Telegraph, Daily Mail, Express, Mirror, Independent and the Guardian; Reuters, the BBC, PA Media, Irish Times, New York Times, several American networks and several reputable indymedia platforms; Full Fact and PA Fact Check; the London School of Economics, Manchester University and Yale University; and independent healthcare and economics experts.
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