Nigel Farage’s largest controversies as he quits as MP – milkshake assault and airplane crash

The Reform leader has quit as an MP and vowed to fight to regain his place – but it is not the first time he has courted controversy

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Nigel Farage is a man that is never far from the limelight in the world of politics. And that remained the same today as the Reform UK Leader shockingly quit as an MP in a lengthy public statement after stating he “absolutely obeyed” the rules about how MPs ought to behave.

He said his daughter being hounded was the “last straw” in his decision to resign. Farage’s statement comes after he faces intense scrutiny over financial support given to him by a convicted fraudster, and a £5 million gift from a Reform UK donor.

The Reform UK leader is under pressure following reports that long-term ally George Cottrell had provided funding for security and staffing in the year before he was elected.

Labour has asked the Electoral Commission to investigate whether the support should have been declared because Farage was a prominent figure in Reform even before he returned to frontline politics.

He said: “The issue with my daughter was the final straw. Enough is enough. And I thought over the weekend, what shall I do? I could go out and try and make some real big money. I could go to the USA, where I’ve got plenty of offers. And then I thought, why should I be judged today, or in history in the future, by Sky News and their ilk?

“Why should they be the people that decide my fate? When, as I repeat, I have done nothing wrong. I thought about it hard and I have decided today I will resign as a Member of Parliament for Clacton-on-Sea, thereby forcing a by-election, which should happen, I hope, in short order.”

He has said he will stand in the by-election, but this was not the only controversy to surround him during his time in the political limelight over the years.

Here we take a look at just some of the headlines he has made:

‘Shouting Hitler Youth songs’ as a child ‘

Involved in politics from an early age, while at South London private school Dulwich College, Farage was active in the Conservative Party.

But records show that in 1981, an English teacher reportedly wrote to the headteacher saying he should not have been made a prefect because he had expressed fascist views.

They claimed that on a Combined Cadet Force camp organised by the college, Farage and others “marched through a quiet Sussex village very late at night shouting Hitler Youth songs”.

Going his own way and Brexit

Farage founded his own political party – the UK Independence Party – UKIP – in 1993 after years of being a prominent Eurosceptic.

In 1994, he asked Enoch Powell to back him and UKIP but was turned down. He became the party leader in 2006 with 45 per cent of the vote, but the party was famously described by David Cameron as a bunch of “fruitcakes, loonies, and closet racists”.

He urged then-Prime Minister Cameron into promising to hold the 2016 Brexit referendum and campaigned hard for the UK to leave the EU.

The UK voted to leave the EU, but not long after the result, Farage admitted that one of the Leave campaign’s key pledges – £350m extra for the NHS per week, famously plastered on the Brexit tour bus – was a “mistake”.

‘Take over’ remarks

In 2013, Farage said he supported Muslim immigrants who “integrate” into society, but not those who are “coming here to take us over” and a year later in 2014, during an interview on LBC, said he felt “uncomfortable” when he heard people speaking other languages on London public transport.

That same year, he defended Ukip candidate Kerry Smith for using a racial slur to describe a Chinese person.

Plane crash

It was election day in 2010, and far from being a beacon of hope for voters, Farage’s two-seater Ukip campaign plane crashed after his “Vote Ukip” banner became entangled, causing the aircraft to nosedive.

Farage was injured and taken to Horton Hospital in Banbury. He later admitted he thought he was going to die in the crash, from which he emerged with fractured neck vertebrae and broken ribs.

His views on women

Farage has been outspoken on women wanting to have children and continue in their jobs.

In 2014 he said: “If a woman with a client base has a child and takes two or three years off work, she is worth far less to the employer when she comes back than when she goes away because her client base cannot be stuck rigidly to her.”

He also claimed to have a lot of knowledge on the subject, adding: “Maybe it’s because I’ve got so many women pregnant over the years that I have a different view [of maternity leave].”

Farage later defended Trump’s infamous “grab ’em by the p***y” comment, saying that, “men say dreadful things sometimes”.

“If all of us were caught out on what we’ve said on a night out after a drink, none of us would be here,” he added.

He has also claimed in the past that breastfeeding women should “sit in the corner” and not be seen.

Milkshake mayhem

In 2019, Farage had a milkshake thrown at him during a walkabout in Newcastle city centre.

He had just given a short speech at the city’s Monument, as part of a nationwide tour ahead of Thursday’s European elections, when he was hit by flying milk.

He was immediately led away by security, with minders urging: “Get him back to the car.”

Mr Farage asked them: “How did you not stop that?” He added: “It’s a complete failure.”

And the same thing happened again in 2024 when Victoria Thomas Bowen hurled a milkshake at Farage as he left a JD Wetherspoon pub in Clacton-on-Sea on June 4, having just launched his candidacy for the Essex constituency.

Thomas Bowen was given a 13-week jail sentence, suspended for 12 months, and ordered to pay the MP £150 compensation.