CLACTON-ON-SEA – “Do you know that it all started here?” Nigel Farage welcomes us to his office in Clacton-on-Sea, a deprived coastal town in Essex, south-east England, where he was finally elected to Westminster after eight failed attempts. “Many people have moved here from East London, where they no longer want to raise their children.”

Standing on a Union Jack doormat and dressed in a leaf-green tweed jacket and mustard-coloured trousers, the architect of Brexit and leader of the right-wing Reform UK party, which is currently leading in the polls, has chosen la Repubblica for his only international interview ahead of the tenth anniversary of the referendum that led to the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union.

Let’s start from that 23rd of June 2016.

"The day before the referendum, when I was here in Clacton, and then went back to London, I thought we had every chance of winning. On the morning of the vote, an opinion poll was published that put Remain 10 points ahead. Of course, it was a lie, and the pollster that did it was rewarded. He's now in the House of Lords. That's how corrupt our establishment was."

Who was it?

"I don't need to be sued. But it sort of came out at 11am, and that depressed me. And then by 6 o'clock on polling day, I've got this sense of total helplessness. You know, I've been campaigning for this for 23 years. I've given up my career. I've done all these things, and I realised this is it. I can't do anything. All I can do is sit here and drink a glass of wine, wait for 10 o'clock. And so the polls close at 10, and I said, well, “I don't know, maybe the other side will win”. And it was funny because I spoke to Donald Trump later in the year. He said “when the polls closed, I knew I'd lost, but I won”. It's that weird, you're almost preparing yourself for the worst. So I would have been wiser to say nothing, much wiser to have said nothing. It was a mistake, but it didn't affect anything."

But many people still say someone made money after you seemed to concede.

"Rubbish. It was very short-lived, because within two hours we had the Sunderland result. The 85,000 versus 58,000 in Sunderland, where everybody had been told, 'You vote Brexit, the car factory will close, you'll all be poor.' And so by the time Sunderland came, everything had changed. So, yeah, there was a funny couple of hours, but forget the conspiracy theory about markets and all the rest of it. To be honest, they were going like this anyway, they were extremely volatile, obviously. Yeah, and we got Sunderland, and then by sort of 3, 4 o'clock in the morning, we knew we'd won. It was an amazing feeling. It was like something that I'd pursued since my late 20s, that everybody told me was impossible, wasn't even on the agenda, wouldn't happen anyway, and yet it happened. And if it hadn't been for me putting all those years of work into UKIP and putting out these messages... I mean, basically what happened in Brussels was a secret, didn't get covered by the press, no one knew the name of them, because I became an MEP, and also because in about 2006 or 2007, YouTube emerged."

Did YouTube change everything?

"It changed the way of campaigning. It changed the way that newspapers and broadcasters came, because they could see, wow, you know, half a million people saw this, a million people saw this. We'd better cover this, you know. YouTube, above all, was what raised my profile. I did feel very proud at 4 o'clock that morning."

Was Brexit Day the greatest day of your life?

"Professionally? Yes, of course."

And personally?

"No, no, you know, we've all got... well, we are normal, I've been lucky enough to have four children who are now adults, I've got three grandchildren, so no, I mean, personal things still come higher. But professionally, yes, it was something that I pursued with single-minded determination."

And what do you feel now? Pride, redemption?

“Obviously, the constitutional change was massive... I mean, it was a constitutional referendum, and a decade on, say, have a look at trade. You know, our trade actually has improved. And over the course of those years, more than our European competitors, our spread around the world is better than it was. Dealing with Europe is more inconvenient than it was, but that's because we didn't negotiate a very good deal. But overall, trade's fine. Economic growth, frankly..., every European country has got terrible problems. We should have done much better economically than we've done. We didn't take the advantages that Brexit offered us. The European Union, and I knew this back in the 90s, is a high regulatory model that is very, very bad for all business except big ones, and big ones love it, because they can effectively write their own rules. Go to the Royal Waterloo Golf Club this morning, you will find European Commission officials playing golf with the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world. They're there right now.”

But do you think that Brexit has really been put into practice?

“Let me come to that. In terms of foreign policy, we stand much taller on the world stage...”

Do you really think so?

“Oh, without a doubt.”

But Britain seems more and more isolated on the world stage, in a more dangerous world.

“We had no voice in Europe at all. No voice in Europe at all. In terms of defence, look, Ukraine is a very good example. We led the way as members of the European Union. We would have been expected to act in solidarity on any foreign policy. So, yes, I think we have stood taller on the world stage. In terms of the vaccine rollout, whatever you think of them, being outside the European scheme, we moved way quicker than any other European country. So these are areas where we've done well as a result of having our independence. But why did people in Clacton vote Brexit? To get back control of our borders.”

But has Britain really taken back control?

“Yes, but we've chosen not to use it. We have complete power over the border.”

You always accuse Boris Johnson of the so-called Boriswave. So it hasn't happened.

“No, it hasn't happened.”

Why?

“Because they never believed in it. I remember the next morning after the referendum, we went for a champagne breakfast at the Ritz in London, and one of my team said to me, 'It is, Nigel. We've just given control of this agenda back to the people that we've just fought against, the Conservative Party.' Theresa May was a disaster. She viewed Brexit as a damage limitation exercise, as opposed to an opportunity. So, on borders, yeah, absolute betrayal, and that's what the Conservative Party did. That's what's killed it. You know, a party that's been the dominant party for 200 years, on and off, is dead in the water because of that betrayal. But the other big sense of betrayal... I mentioned big companies to you, and small companies. You know, every piece of European legislation affects every company, whether you've got one employee or 20,000 or five or six million small businesses. They all thought, 'We got Brexit. Hooray, hooray, we're not going to get constant updates to the rules coming through European directives. Our lives will be freer, easier to get about our business.' And in some ways we made it even worse. The British government, in its pursuit of small entrepreneurs, is even worse than it was when we were in the European Union. So they are two areas where we have... British governments have opted not to use the freedoms that we have. And I would say this to you, and this to your audience in Italy. Just think about this fact. In 2008, at the time of the global financial crisis, the GDP of America was exactly the same size as the GDP of the Eurozone. What is it now?”

Way bigger.

“Double in 17 years. It's double now. That tells you that the American approach to entrepreneurship, business, energy, which is absolutely at the centre of everything, net zero agendas, you name it... So, for us, Brexit should have been, and still can be, what I call the great escape from a failing, over-regulated social market model. So I'm annoyed that we haven't taken all of those opportunities, but if there was to be a referendum about going back in, we would say no..”

Do you think this is going to happen? The Labour Party wants a reset, the Mayor of London wants to rejoin straightforwardly. What is going to happen now? Will Britain really try to be closer or rejoin?

“Rejoin, forget it. It would kill the Labour Party.”

Despite the polls saying that the majority of the Brits want to rejoin?

“Polls are fascinating. Would digital ID be a good idea? 80% say yes. You then have the arguments, it becomes 40%. That's the point. The idea that we would rejoin the European Union, commit to joining the euro, forget it, isn't going to happen. But I blame the Conservatives for not taking us further away from single market rules, and now it's clear we're just going to mirror single market rules, done by an unimaginative group of politicians, none of whom have ever set up and run a business, none of them.”

And if Britain rejoined the single market, it would be even more rule-taking than before.

“That's why it's very interesting, even in the Times newspaper, where you've got sort of upper middle-class London metropolitan commentators, people like Jenni Russell, who's a very good writer but was a strong Remainer, and even she says, I've looked at what rejoining the single market would mean, and it's not for us. And the fisheries, the fisheries, he gave away 11 years of European access to British borders in return for nothing. Nothing! So I'm adamant that Brexit was the right thing to do. I'm adamant that the European market, the single market in particular, is an economic failure at every level and, in terms of tech and everything else, just falling behind the rest of the world. I don't think Europeans realise the irrelevance into which they're casting themselves in global terms. I'm surprised we don't hear more eurosceptic arguments on the continent, but I guess it's beginning to happen. I mean, Bardella, that's a pretty eurosceptic agenda that Bardella is pursuing. There is at least a debate now about the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Court, which, you know, again, we voted Brexit, and we're still stuck with this bloody legislation from Strasbourg. And I guess the AfD, I can't work out really what they are, but I think they're fairly eurosceptic, they're pretty eurosceptic, so we'll see...”

Italian PM Meloni, for instance, was a eurosceptic, but not anymore.

“Well, she has been a bit less eurosceptical in government than some of her voters would have wanted, but she has brought great stability to Italian politics. She's raised Italy's standing in terms of respect around the world, and there's no doubt about that. People like it, you know. And she turns up, and I've met some global leaders who've met her in private, so she's great fun to be with, and they really like her. I think she's helped Italy to regain a bit of self-confidence, and I think from that we may well see over the next few years that the logic of that is that euroscepticism will become a bit more mainstream in Italy. The more confident you feel, the less you want someone in Brussels telling you what to do. You know, we only joined... we only joined in the 70s because we were an economic basket case, strikes, governments falling, and it was almost like, oh, well, I'll tell you what, this might do us a favour. So, you know, confidence is quite an important point, man. I can never understand why any sovereign state would want to give away sovereignty.”

But the thing is, now the world has changed. The war in Ukraine, many Europeans feel threatened. And Britain was not the best example of leaving the European Union for what happened in the meantime. Euroscepticism is on the back foot and it's gonna lose appeal, isn't it?

“This is an interesting one. The defence argument is an interesting one. The reason the Europeans want a European defence force is to reduce defence spending, that was the original reason for it. Now some have increased quite a lot, Poland, etc., but anyone that thinks that there is a credible defence future without America needs their heads tested, literally needs their heads tested, and I think Trump has been good for NATO. He's actually woken people up and said, guys... I've spoken to him. I've spoken to him in private about this, you know, going back for the last 10 years and more...”

Does President Trump really believe in NATO?

“He does, but he's aggrieved, as every president since Kennedy has been. Everybody forgets this, every president since Kennedy has said, 'What are these lazy Europeans doing freeloading off the back of us?' And he did make a comment the other day. He said, 'Well, we're here to help, we're here to help them, but would they be here to help us?' That's the most sceptical thing that he said, and that was a very interesting comment. So, I think he's been good for NATO.”

So he means: I support NATO but you have to help me with Iran and anywhere else.

“I think, you know, the decision to go to war in Iran was him and Netanyahu, but I think the lack of willingness of the British to provide support without direct intervention was a very big strategic mistake. That didn't mean getting directly involved with the war, but it meant giving indirect support, and I think we've made a very bad mistake. And even when it comes to the Straits of Hormuz, you know, if we were to assemble a group of European countries to help, and that doesn't... apart from the French, the French have been more helpful than us in this, so I don't think a European Defence Force, if there is to be a European Defence Force, has to be separate from the structures of the European Union, is the point that I would make. NATO is a good example, actually, of sovereign states cooperating together. You know, I agree to do this for you, you agree to do this for me, but I could walk away tomorrow if I wanted. That is, NATO is sovereign state cooperation. The European Union is sovereign states giving away their ability to make decisions. So, there's quite fundamental differences here. So, and from my perspective, you know, we want good relations with our European neighbours. I've never not wanted good relations with our European neighbours. I'm very happy to cooperate, you know, with military cooperation, but not through the Brussels structures. It's really the point that I would make.”

I'll come back to this point, just on migrants and Brexit...

“They were idiots, idiots! I stood there, I stood there in late 2015 and 2016. I stood up in the European Parliament with Juncker next to me as they implemented for the first time the EU's refugee scheme, and I just said, 'If anyone that sets foot on the southern coast of Europe is allowed to stay, millions will come. You are making a massive mistake,' and they did make a massive mistake, compounded by Merkel and others, but it's been a huge mistake. One of the reasons we voted Brexit was we saw what was coming across the Mediterranean and said we don't want that.”

Meanwhile, hundreds or thousands of people have moved here from Asia and Africa with very different cultures and religions, while you chastised Eastern Europeans, who at least were mostly Christians.

“No, we just let too many in! Culturally, we and the Poles are not that far apart.”

But do you regret that?

“What I regret is people who come to another country to work should come on work permits, right? In 2004 we just opened the doors unconditionally. They told us net 13,000 a year would arrive, hundreds of thousands a year arrived, and the impact that had on wages, on house prices, on rents was very real. The Boris wave is of a different magnitude. Not only is it cultures that either find it difficult or refuse to assimilate, but of the 3.8 million that came under Boris, only 19% had work permits, many on dependants. It'll be, it'll be the most expensive. No one quite knows. Some estimates are it'll cost us 200 billion pounds over the rest of these people's lives, and that's why the Tories are sunk, you know. Any argument... I mean, basically, if 20 years ago you said we should be very careful about immigration, you were told, 'Shut your mouth, it's good for the economy.' All right, that argument's gone. It's making us poorer.”

But at least Eastern Europeans are very hard workers, which is maybe something that Britain misses now, doesn't it?

“I'll tell you something, every Pole I meet says, 'I support you.' There you are. There's always, by the way, there's a lot of Italian eurosceptics in London as well. You go to Italian restaurants, it's quite surprising, actually. It's quite a surprise. Yeah, I was...”

OK, but before Brexit, Britain was more a European country. Now it's more diverse.

“The Boris wave was a disaster, and didn't need to happen, wasn't necessary, didn't fulfil any economic criteria, and yeah, and this is why, 10 years on, people are disappointed that they voted for something that didn't happen.”

You said you want a very constructive approach with the European Union. But you want to strip indefinite leave to remain (ILR) from many migrants. Are you talking also about Europeans who are legally protected?

“ILR for the rest of the world, we're very clear where we stand. ILR with Europe, we have to have a negotiation, we have to have a negotiation with other European countries. That's true.”

Before deciding anything like that?

“Yeah, there has to be a conversation, of course. But I mean, look, you know, the problem with ILR is it automatically gives you rights to the whole benefit system, including social housing, and you've got London boroughs now where over 50% of social housing is occupied by foreign-born people who, in some cases, have never spoken a word of English. And what's funny about this debate is, we could go to almost every country in the world, they wouldn't do this. They, I mean, they just wouldn't do this. Most countries in the world, if you arrive illegally, you're put in prison and deported, and yet we've all gone mad with European free movement and sort of fried our brains as to what common sense is. And, you know, we've always been... I mean, this country has always been very generous to people genuinely in peril, you know, Jewish communities, whatever, Ugandan Asians. We've always been very generous, you know, in letting tens of thousands come and settle and humanise, whatever it may be, but this is just of a different magnitude. This defies logic, it defies common sense, and it actually crosses the old traditional left-right boundaries of politics. The patriotic old left feel just as strongly about this.”

That's why the old left is now voting for you?

“Exactly right.”

Just for that?

“I would say they're voting for us because of the downstream impacts they see in their communities, where they've probably lived for many, many generations, suddenly changing in an extraordinary way. You know, they didn't object to the curry house or the Chinese. They didn't object to any of that. What they object to is if the whole area starts to change. I mean, Colchester is our nearest city to here, Britain's oldest town, a Roman town. You speak to youngsters here. Saturday night, big night out for the boys and girls, it's Colchester, that's where the big nightclubs are, and they'll tell you that Colchester now is almost unrecognisable from five years ago. The Boris wave has changed the country in a very, very big way. So, look, why is Reform doing well? I think it's doing well, as much as anything, because of the disappointments of Brexit, and I think it's doing well because a lot of people on these issues would see me as the real deal. But I'm not saying this to court their popularity. I'm saying this because I always bloody said it. I haven't really changed my view on those things, but I think above all the reason we're doing well is repeated promises at election after election after election, including post the referendum, as to what government would do, and it's done the opposite. So faith and trust in politics is breaking down, and I think because of what we've done, it has led directly now to the fragmentation of the left, and there's a new left, and the new left don't believe in borders at all. I mean, the new left... what if the new left ever got into power? We'll leave, and anybody with money would leave. It would be a catastrophe. It's proper Marxism that has re-emerged. It's like a virus, Marxism. It keeps coming back every few decades.”

Sorry, but just to be absolutely clear, European migrants living here legally, under legal protection by the Brexit deal, can they consider themselves safe?

“Safe but not guaranteed benefits.”

Unless they work?

“And that's fine. That's fine if they work.”

That's against the deal with the EU.

“Well, that has to be changed. As I said to you, that has to be negotiated, but it isn't the root of our problem. The root of our problem is, if one's being brutal about it, Pakistan. I mean, it's a disaster, literally a disaster, and that's not just economically, that's culturally as well. You know, if you look at these inner cities where radical Islam is taking hold, where welfare dependency is just off the charts, where first cousin marriage now perpetuates generation after generation after generation, with all the impacts, the health impacts of that. It's the Pakistani Kashmiris.”

That's the big problem, you think?

“It's a much bigger problem than Europeans being here.”

Talking about migrants, of course. There's been a big debate about your words ‘pure, cold rage’. Do you regret them?

“No, no!”

Even after what we saw in Belfast?

“It was gonna happen anyway. It was gonna happen anyway!”

So, for you it was bound to happen?

“Yeah, as if I'd said it would have happened anyway. I mean, this is classic, isn't it? And it's a shame. It's a shame that masked yobs turn up and set fire to things, because it gives the political class an excuse to say, ‘Oh, look at these awful people,’ rather than ever dealing with the problem itself in the first place. And after George Floyd, fury, fury, the Mayor of London, you know. Yeah, I understand the fury. Protesters vandalising Churchill's statue. No problem, no problem. Carry on, chaps, smash the place to pieces, that's fine. And the use of the word fury was actually quite commonly used by all these senior figures. What I expressed after Southport was pure cold rage, and I think that was a very well-chosen phrase. Cold rage, as you're boiling inside because of the sheer injustice of what you see.”

So people should have the right to be enraged, correct?

“If you're not angry by that video, there's something wrong with you, and I mean that. this isn't over, by the way. This isn't over. This Henry Novak thing is not over.”

Do you think this is just a start? More tensions, riots, unrest?

“If people don't see positive solutions, then I fear that yes, that's right.”

Are you gambling, playing to the far right, also because of the Makerfield election?

“No, no, we haven't changed our stance at all. Everyone says that, it's bollocks, you know. If you look at Operation Restoring Justice, which we published last year, we've been very clear and consistent on all these things. I mean, look, you know, I was debanked because of my political views. I don't support DEI, I don't support positive discrimination, I don't believe in any of this, I never have, I never have, and in fact I'll be publishing on Sunday. I'm launching a Substack on Sunday.”

About?

“It will be about the impact that equalities legislation, inequalities legislation, what it's done to our schools, what it's done to our businesses, what it's done to our public services, what it's done to the Royal Air Force, what it's done to the police, what it's done to the courts, what it's done to the... I could go on. It'll be a big four or five thousand-word piece...”

On Sunday.

“You said I'm launching a Substack on Sunday. On the very intro... good for your trade. It's very interesting, but the world we thought had moved to 30-second videos. It's now going back to long form. Podcasts, long-form essays, people are actually getting to enjoy this stuff. Do you know what? I'm quite good at seeing trends. I didn't see this one. As I say, I don't think we've changed our stance at all, but there have been events that have happened that have made us say things, and I know. Look, it just... it's classic, isn't it? Sort of Starmer and a sort of attempt to dehumanise, but never to deal with the problem. I think people are very angry.”

Do you think that white people are discriminated against nowadays?

“Without doubt. It's written. Look, I can show you the documents, I can show you the police documents that tell the police, do not police everyone the same. I've got emails that have flooded in since that video from serving and ex-police officers telling me that one big fear is if you're accused of being racist or not treating an accusation of racism seriously, you're immediately suspended.”

Many people from the left say that you are racist. How do you respond to that?

“I just ignore it.”

The Guardian reported your alleged racist remarks in school.

“They will throw anything they can. I mean, it's unbelievable.”

But what do you respond to them?

“I'm applying pure logic to the argument, and I think if we go on segmenting the population, you're this, you're that, you're that. We do this for you, this for you, but not this for you. That's where the division comes. That's where the anger comes. And what I'm saying is, I want a meritocratic system where we treat people who are part of our way of life, either by birth or by choice, right. We treat people equally, and we promote people according to ability, and that is the only way forward. I promise you, you know, if you come and speak to me in 10 years, this is what it'll be. This is what it'll be. You know why? It's about the British sense of fairness, and it's one of the things about these islands that generally people have a very strong sense of what is fair, and what is happening clearly, that is not fair.”

What do you think of Elon Musk fanning the flames from abroad?

“Well, of course, British politicians commented on the George Floyd case, so there's, again, more hypocrisy here. I'm amazed Musk's got time to do social media. I mean, yeah, we've got the SpaceX launch, and I mean, clearly he's a genius. And look, I've got Starlink, it's great, great, but I think that he just... yeah, I mean, some of the things that he says and pushes are very out there, very out there. He's free to do it. He owns the platform.”

Why doesn't Musk like you, and why does he like Rupert Lowe?

“Because I don't say, ‘Yes and no, sir. Three bags full, sir.’ You can't bully me, can't buy me. I'm my own man. He wanted me to come out to support Tommy Robinson publicly, and I said, I can't do Tommy. Let Tommy do what he does. Let me do what I do. But, you know, Tommy should not be involved in electoral politics.”

No one can buy you, even if you get £5 million in cryptocurrency?

“Have been all my life. I'm an individualist. I'm the least corporate person you'll probably ever meet.”

About that donation. I didn't understand. At first you said that it was for security, then you changed version.

“It was unconditional, but that's the key. It's unconditional, but what will I use it for? To make sure that long term I'm protected for life, which I will need to be, because the state doesn't want to help me.”

Are you afraid of Rupert Lowe? You know he's snatching many votes out of Reform.

“The view I take is that it won't last, it'll fall to pieces.”

So it won't last?

“It'll fall to bits.”

Why do you think that?

“Because who is there, apart from him? There's no one. There's him, a social media account, you see him interviewed, he's all over the place, and it's clever use of social media promoted by Elon Musk. Musk puts all this to the top of the algorithm. Also, you know, a lot of people say, well, we like Restore because they get their stuff on social media, and he's a really nice man, he's just a farmer. Well, you know, one of your top supporters is interviewed on a podcast and says, ‘You're a Jew, we're sending you home.’ When people see that, they won't like it.”

But you know Reform may lose in Makerfield because of Lowe.

“It's possible, but I think it's being overestimated.”

Overestimated?

“I think it's a media story. It's a good media story.”

Well, I went there, and there is some support for Restore.

“There is, but it's not particularly big.”

Back to Trump. Do you think that Britain should have a MEGA movement, like Make England Great Again? Zia Yusuf went to Washington today to reconnect with the MAGA movement.

“Yes, he's done it very well.”

But do you think it may work in this country, and is a MEGA movement the right thing?

“We speak the same language, but we're different, different cultures. It's not going to be a MAGA-type movement.”

That's why you said no ICE-like deportations, because they cannot be applied to this culture.

“It's about how you do things, how you operate things. The American culture is very different. Look, there are commonalities with the MAGA movement, but it's not a mirror image.”

Why has your relationship with Trump cooled down recently?

“It hasn't. No, we're still great friends.”

People say because he's not very popular here, and so maybe you are cautious towards him.

“I've never disavowed Trump. I've never... I've disagreed with him on things. If you go back over the last 10 years, you'll find five or six public examples of me taking a different position. And we've had conversations where we've disagreed on things, and that's fine. But friends can disagree. I've never disavowed the fact that he's a friend. He is... he is... I could pick the phone up now. He'd answer, all right. They would, he would, he would. He's a friend, his sons are friends. I know the family, and I do. You know what? The last six months, no illegal crossings of the southern border. I mean, zero. He's done it, he's closed the border, he stopped illegal immigration. Six million came under Biden, six million, and a lot of them serious foreign gangs that will do American cities enormous harm in the years to come. So, you know, whatever people think of him, one thing Trump always tries to do, he always tries to keep his promises, and you can agree with what he does, you can disagree with what he does, but he tries to keep his promises. He said to me once, ‘I've kept more promises than I ever made.’ It's him, and it's the force of it all. But look, the American economy is booming, all right. The rich are getting richer.”

Just one last thing. Are you sure you want to become Prime Minister? Because I saw some recent interviews of yours. You seem reluctant.

“I don't want to be boastful. I don't want to sound boastful. I think that's it.”

But it doesn't sound like your greatest ambition to be PM.

“You know what I'm saying is this: people struggle to understand this, and I get it. There are two types of people in politics, those who want to be something, and those who want to do something. I couldn't give a damn about titles, rank, honours, knighthoods. I'm not in the least bit interested in anything. I couldn't care. Most people want to be Prime Minister, you know why? Because they want to be Prime Minister.”

And do you want to be PM?

“I want to be Prime Minister because of what I can do with it. That's the point.”

So, you still want to?

“Yeah, unless someone better comes along. Do you know something? If someone better than me comes along, I'll know.”

Once Arron Banks told me that you are more a preacher than a politician. Is that right?

“Yes, I think it is. Bannon first saw me speaking, Steve Bannon, in 2013 in a town hall in Cambridgeshire, and Bannon said afterwards, ‘You're not a politician, you're a prophet,’ which is more or less... So, there is some truth. Yeah, I mean, there is some truth in that. You know, I try to... I've generally been very good at reading the tea leaves and seeing where it's going. I've generally been very good at having a sense of what the great British public think, and the direction that they're moving in. If I'd stayed in business, I'd be very, very rich, but I didn't. I came to do this.”