Interviews with MEPs: Nigel Farage, UKIP
“If I had the possibility of changing anything of the EU, I’d simply abolish it”
Nigel Farage is the leader of the UKIP (United Kingdom Independence Party), and co-president of the Europe of Freedom and Democracy Group in the European Parliament. Farage is well known because of his criticism of the European project in general and of the European Institutions in particular. Hereby you can find the interview he has kindly given us. If you want to know anything else about him, you can follow him on twitter.
-Could you tell us anything about your background? What are your studies?
Not very distinguished, I’m afraid – some decent secondary-school certificates – but my real education, as a young man, took place on the Stock Exchange, where I began as a junior trader and progressed to running my own brokerage-firm.
-How did you become a MEP? Was this an objective for you in your political career?
I had no intention of entering the EU’s fatuous pseudo-parliament; but, after abandoning the decaying corpse of the Conservative Party (when it signed up to the Maastricht Treaty, in 1992) and helping to found the UK Independence Party (UKIP) in 1993, I became aware that there was no direct route, for an anti-EU Party, to approach the real – if gravely EU-emasculated – Parliament at Westminster, and that UKIP would have to seek a platform, by means of the proportional-representation system, used in the elections to the EU’s consultative assembly, in Brussels.
-What’s your role in the European Parliament?
The role of the “deputé”, in this absurd institution, is to appear to be legislating, when, in fact, all he does is approve the legislative proposals of the EU-Commission. The Commission can even strike down the amendments of the “parliament”, if it doesn’t like them. The “deputés” spend their time looking busy, pretending to have the power to assist constituents and pumping out EU-propaganda.
I really am busy, countering that propaganda – speaking at hundreds of meetings around the UK and elsewhere, every year, giving interviews to the press and television, writing articles, press-releases and books – and trying to spread the message that the EU is a kind of new USSR – squidgy and sugary, at the moment, but gradually becoming more baneful and fearsome as it accumulates power.
-What’s being the role of the EP in the current crisis? Will it be reinforced when we’ll overcome it?
“PsEUdoparl” is increasingly seen for what it is: camouflage for the actual, unaccountable powers of the EU; and the economic crisis has helped to do this. People can see how irrelevant it is; but it cannot be otherwise. This “parliament” has no electorate. Even if it had powers, it could not be democratic. There is no means, by which the electorates of the 27 EU-subject states can discuss the issues together, let alone identify common goals or choose the right people to achieve them. Meanwhile, the Commission pours money into institutions, which support the EU politically and suppress dissent, ensuring that only EU-parties win elections and become EU-governments or the political eunuchs who clog up the EU’s pseudo-parliament and vote for all of the Commission’s proposals.
-What are the principles of the Europe of Freedom and Democracy? How do you understand Europe?
The EFD-Group is a strange mixture of EU-abolitionists, EU-sceptics and EU-reformists. None of them likes what the EU is, but not all are prepared to admit that the EU is fundamentally and irreformably undemocratic and anti-democratic, although most of them are gradually realising this as they experience the futility of trying to reform the EU. The desire for democracy, and for a high degree of individual freedom, is what unites us.
-Do think that the EU is too bureaucratized?
The EU is nothing but a bureaucracy!
-Is decision-making in the EU entirely conditioned by the crisis?
No – the bureaucracy regards the crisis as trivial. It even welcomes the crisis as an excuse to extend its powers.
-If you had the possibility to change something of the EU, what would it be?
Abolish it.
-Are you worried about the citizen disaffection for the European project? How can that be fought against? Should we fight against it?
I am only worried that disaffection may not be growing quickly enough, or is not organised enough, to prevent the EU becoming the next USSR politically and militarily. We must do all we can to make people understand the danger the EU represents.
-How do you think the EU will be in 1-year time? And in 5 years?
In the next 12 months, the eurozone will shatter. The EU will then try to impose draconian, central rule; but, as long as we maintain our democratic institutions and vote patriotic parties into government, within five years the EU will have begun to crumble, as nation after nation re-asserts its independence.
-Thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure.