after Brexit, Nigel Farage takes on reality TV

One of the main architects of Brexit, Nigel Farage, is currently taking part in the reality TV show “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here”, broadcast on ITV and watched this year by an average of seven million people.

He was one of the figures of the Brexit campaign, at the head of Ukip, which later became the Brexit Party. Fiercely anti-immigration, clearly far-right. Nigel Farage, a former European parliamentarian, then withdrew from politics but remained in the media landscape through his consistently strong positions, against confinement during the pandemic for example. He also hosts a current affairs program on the very right-wing channel GB News.

He was courted by the producers of I’m a celebrity, get me out of here. This time he is there, in Australia, in sometimes hostile nature, and all his appearances are highly commented on in the United Kingdom. It must be said that his presence in the show was the subject of long rumors before it was made official, a few days before the broadcast.

“I’m Nigel Farage, a hero to some, the absolute villain to millions more. I dealt with snakes in the European Parliament, I think I’ll get through it here too.”

Nigel Farage

in the show’s trailer

We’ve already seen him eating insect pizzas, we’ve also seen his butt while he’s showering in the forest. But it’s around the campfire, surrounded by a DJ, an influencer and other small media stars that tempers heat up. He was also confronted with one of them: Fred Sirieix, a French maître d’hôtel, who has a career in British TV, attacked Farage on the subject of Brexit: “The thing was the intolerance that went with itthe Frenchman gets carried away. Because Brexit is about immigration. It’s a shame what you did, Nigel! ‘We don’t want any more Europeans, we want to control our borders’…”

“It has nothing to do with Europeans, don’t be stupidreplies Farage. Brexit is one thing and one thing only: autonomy. We are in charge. You can do it well or you can make it a complete waste. But we are responsible. And the people who make these decisions, we choose to keep them or fire them at election time, that’s the real power.”

Nigel Farage is doing worse than former Health Minister Matt Hancock, who attracted two million more viewers when he appeared on the same show last year. But Farage’s fee is much higher: this opponent of the “system” receives 1.7 million euros to be filmed in the Australian bush.