I’m A Celeb star Nigel Farage had failed London company before politics
Nigel Farage is preparing to go into the I’m A Celeb jungle in Australia this Sunday night when the latest series of the reality show starts.
It means the former City worker may be tasked with eating kangaroo testicles and Witchetty grubs native to Australia to try to win his camp mates food. 12 celebrities will be living together in a basic set up within the jungle.
Farage is joined by other famous names including food critic Grace Dent, Britney Spears’ sister Jamie Lynn Spears and TikTok star Nella Rose, who producers hope will draw in a younger audience.
Before Farage became Leader of the UK Independence Party in 2006 and Leader of the Brexit Party (later Reform UK) from 2019 to 2021, the 59-year-old from Orpington was a worker in Canada. He has long traded off his pinstripe suit wearing, pint glugging City image.
But one recent report suggests the idea that Farage had a successful City career is a “misnomer.”
“This suggestion that he was a very wealthy man in the City is probably a bit of a misnomer,” a metals broker told the FT. “I don’t think he was anywhere near as successful as some people are portraying. He probably does better out of being an MEP.”
One of his metals broking firms went insolvent. According to the newspaper’s report, in 2003 Farage formed Farage Limited, a commodities broker, but in 2014 the business was still in the process of paying back £33,000 in owed taxes. Farage had remained a director until 2011.
Farage began his City career in 1982 at a commodities brokerage and worked at various brokers throughout the decade, before setting up his own firm in 1994 called Farage Futures. In 1990s offices for Farage’s trading business, “cigarette smoke hung 4ft from the floor as staff worked in their shirtsleeves, using two telephones at a time,” one City worker said.
It was around the early 2010s that Farage pivoted to politics, moving away from the City career that had defined him for around 30 years.
Farage became a popular media figure, comfortable with a pint-in-hand and becoming a relatable voice for people who felt left out from the mainstream manifestos of the major political parties. He quit frontline politics in 2021 after achieving relative success. In 2015 under his leadership Ukip took more than 14% of the vote in the general election.
In a statement on the Reform UK website he said he hoped to influence public opinion through social media rather than through an overt political role.
He is presently a weeknight presenter on right-wing news channel GB News and an honorary president of the Reform UK parliamentary party.