NIGEL FARAGE, MICHAEL CRICK tells us at the end of this impressive biography, is one of the great politicians of post-war Britain. He ranks alongside Thatcher, Blair, Salmond and Johnson for impact on our country and its direction, Crick reckons, because without Farage there’d have been no referendum and no Brexit. He may never have been elected to Parliament, but who cares? He’s historically important.
I largely agree. I also think Farage’s absence from Parliament at Westminster is a sign of how our political establishment remains unwilling to learn the lessons of that referendum and admit the people who were shut out of national conversation for too long. Glance at some of the people deemed worthy of ermine and tell me Farage shouldn’t have been made a peer long ago. And if you’re wondering, I voted Remain.
But I don’t want political biography to confirm my prior views. I want it to tell me things I didn’t know, and help me understand the subject — and their times — better. By that measure, Crick does a very good job, especially on the detail, though he sometimes falls short when it comes to the big picture.
Having cast his subject in such grand terms, the ultimate prize for Crick here is not to tell us how Farage came to be so “disruptive” — that is a broadly familiar story, after all — but why. What caused him to do what he did, with such consequence?
Like many very famous politicians, Farage’s character is both very familiar and unknown. Most people think they have a sense of the
