Reform leader made reputation in 2010 speech calling former Belgian PM Herman Van Rompuy a ‘damp rag’
t was the speech that made Nigel Farage’s reputation: inflammatory, insulting and riddled with distortions. Speaking on the floor of the European parliament, Farage addressed Herman Van Rompuy, an erudite, softly spoken former Belgian prime minister, appointed to the new post of European Council president. “I don’t want to be rude,” Farage began.
For EU insiders, the insults were not a surprise. “It was the usual stuff,” said Guy Verhofstadt, the veteran Belgian MEP, who is standing down from the European parliament and was in the chamber that day. “His style of debating was always like that,” Verhofstadt said. “What he did was attack everybody that stood for Europe. You could know from the start of the debate what he was going to say.
The arrival of the European parliament’s streaming service in 2008 combined with the rise of social media was a gamechanger. Short, punchy clips of Farage haranguing European politicians went viral on social media, getting far more views than the EU’s official channels at that time. In their occasional meetings on trains or planes, Corbett recalls someone who was “chatty” but “tried to avoid getting caught into discussing facts, figures”. EU civil servants remember a disrespectful attitude: “It was clear that he despised the civil servants, he despised any rule or custom,” said one former civil servant. “His demeanour was very dismissive, unpleasant.
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