Farage branded ‘grouse-shooting cosplay’ of MP by locals he ditched for Trump

Furious Clacton residents have hit out at Nigel Farage‘s decision to fly stateside in support of former president Donald Trump following the failed assassination attempt.

Instead of working to deliver on issues close to home following the King’s Speech on Wednesday, the Reform UK Leader jumped on the first flight out of Heathrow to America. Justifying his jaunt, which came just weeks after he was elected as MP, Farage defended his decision.

Insisting he “had to come”, the divisive politician, who once said of being an MP – “Do I want to spend every Friday for the next five years in Clacton?” – told Emily Matitlis that he did the ‘right thing’.

Speaking to the News Agents podcast in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where the Republican Convention was taking place, he explained: “Trump, I’ve been friendly with him for all these years and he has just survived an assassination attempt. I thought I would come and say ‘hello’.” He added that some people ‘around’ Trump thought it was ‘the right thing that I came’.

Quizzed on whether he should be back in Clacton as the new MP, he doubled down, arguing: “I’m allowed to come to America on a trip like this, particularly in these circumstances.” The uncomfortable clip of squirming Farage has gone viral, with social media users mocking the MP online.

However to those that it matters to the most – his constituents – it’s far from a laughing matter. The Mirror headed to the Essex town to hear what locals thought, with not everyone in Clacton was as enthusiastic about Farage’s visit as the man himself…

‘He should be here’

Cafe owner Paige Taylor says it’s ‘ridiculous’ that Farage went Stateside instead of resolving the problems in his constituency. She says: “He should be here.”

“There are so many problems around here that he should be dealing with,” she argued. “He wanted to be the MP of Clacton, but yet when he could be doing that he’s nowhere to be found. Of course it’s much easier to be in America.

“If he’s there he doesn’t have to deal with any of our problems. There are homeless people everywhere, crime is high, there are so many things that he could be helping with. People are in desperate need of housing, the area just needs money putting into it.

“We know why he’s over there. He’s in the spotlight over there, he’s Nigel Farage, it’s good for his ego, but it’s not good for the people of Clacton.”

‘Showing his true colours’

Market stall owner Jake Race thinks Mr Farage’s trip reveals what his true priorities are. He says: “You’ve just become MP of Clacton and the first thing you decided to do is fly off to the US. It tells the people of Clacton that you don’t really care, it was more about the headlines to get himself in here.

“That was all he wanted, he wasn’t interested in Clacton, or Walton or Frinton, and we shouldn’t expect him to bring anything extra into the area. That was always going to happen though. I’d be very surprised if out of the 260 or so possible Friday surgeries he does no more than 50. He seems like a man who always has something else to do, another person to meet, rather than focussing on what’s going on here.

“He doesn’t need to be in America sidling up to Trump, he needs to be here. He should be helping our town centres, pushing small business, because we’re struggling here in Clacton. But he’s gone because there are more exciting things happening over there for him than there are over here.

“He makes himself out to be a man of the people but he’s not, he’s a grouse-shooting cosplay man of the people, I think he’s over there playing politics and playing Nigel Farage, and that has nothing to do with what’s happening in Clacton.”

‘Only thinking about himself’

Gift shop owner Vanessa Heady says most people she knows expected Mr Farage to be anywhere but Clacton once the election campaign was over. She says: “We would all say, ‘he’ll get in and we’ll never see him again.’ And in his first weeks, he’s thousands of miles away. It has just confirmed to many people what they thought he would do.

“The local Facebook groups are all commenting, saying he’s off to America when this town really needs him. It’s what we all expected, it’s all about self-publicity, it’s about how much exposure he can get, not what he can do for our town.

“All the towns in his constituency need urgent help. People can’t get doctors or dentists. Anyone who gets elected to represent us here should have been here on the first day trying to sort out the problems. But Farage is like Trump, it’s all about me, without actually doing anything.

“The people voted for him because they didn’t know any different, and now they’re seeing that we’re stuck with him.”