[Theme Music Starts]

RUBY:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am.

The right-wing, anti-immigration politician who led the Brexit campaign in Britain is currently touring Australia.

Nigel Farage has become increasingly irrelevant in British politics, so why is he commanding speaking fees and being given a hero's welcome by Sky News presenters and One Nation politicians?

It could be a cynical money grabbing exercise, a play for political influence in Australia, or both.

Today, journalist Kurt Johnson, on the Nigel Farage Tour, the figures behind it and the global franchise of right-wing politics.

It’s Monday, October 3.

[Theme Music Ends]

RUBY:

Kurt, you recently went to go and see Nigel Farage, who is the controversial former British politician, speak here in Australia. Why did you want to go to hear from him and what questions did you have about what it was that he might say?

KURT:

Well, I received an invite in my email. I like to keep tabs on the anti-establishment Right. But also, Farage is probably one of the most successful populist right wing politicians and characters in the world. It's worth noting that Trump, who rarely doles out any sort of praise for anyone but himself, said that his election win was “Brexit plus, plus, plus.” And of course, Farage is someone who, you know, was responsible for Brexit.

And I was really interested in the local context of a Eurosceptic, a British Eurosceptic who had made their career denouncing the EU coming to Australia. Where was the line between the politician, the troll and the entertainer? And he's had his apex, he's had his high point and he's on the way down. And usually what happens when politicians are moving into their later years, the constraints begin to lift off and you begin to hear what they really think. So that's why I was enthusiastic in going to see him.

RUBY:

Okay. And so, as you say, Nigel Farage is probably best known for his agitating around Brexit, he's aligned I suppose with Donald Trump, who seems to be a fan. But could you tell me how it was that he arrived at the high point of his career, which arguably now has passed, but tell me a bit about his journey to becoming a right wing populist.

KURT:

You know, he was once a member of the British Conservative Party. He left the Conservative Party in ‘92. And then that was really when he became more of an anti-establishment character. And he joined UKIP party quite soon after it formed and became this really prominent figure in it, and he was elected to the European Parliament as an MEP. But always on this anti-European Union ticket, he was always part of the Parliament but against Britain being part of it.

Archival tape -- Nigel Farage:

“And I..even..even no deal is better for the United Kingdom than the current rotten deal that we've got.”

KURT:

He's a climate change denier. He's against net zero. He's conservative. But his core platform has always involved being against immigration.

Archival tape -- Nigel Farage:

“Do you think it would be a good idea if you had, you know, if you were running your own immigration policy, which of course Britain doesn't, because we’re EU members, do you think it would be a good idea to get a lot of people to come who didn't speak English? Do you think that that would aid and abet integration in society? Well, the answer, of course to that, clearly, is no. Do I think..”

KURT:

And there's sort of this mystique surrounding Farage in terms of his private life. So he's cheated death three times and whenever he goes to one of these conservative functions, he'll go on stage and he'll get introduced as someone who's cheated death.

So he had cancer. He got hit by a Volkswagen and he was in a plane crash where a UKIP banner got caught up in one of the rear propellers.

Archival tape -- News reporter:

“Those who saw this plane smash into the field were amazed that anyone could walk away from it. But despite his injuries, UKIP's Nigel Farage was helped from the wreckage.”

Archival tape -- Nigel Farage:

“And if before that crash, in politics I was unafraid to take on the establishment, since that day, I’ve been fearless.”

KURT:

And, you know, he has this incredible energy that surrounds him. He has these things called PFLs, which is Proper Farage Lunches or Proper F***ing Lunches.

There's this, yeah, this larger than life character that can be quite seductive, because then there's the things that he's saying. You know, there's the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, said that Farage was a “retro nationalist.” Caroline Lucas at the Greens Party MP said his legacy is “toxic and unforgivable.” And really there's what he has to say that can be quite dangerous. So you have this dual personality of his political outlook, but also that of a celebrity, that of a political celebrity. And he was brought to Australia by an ex-publisher of Penthouse, Damian Costas, who is the head of this organisation which is called Turning Point Australia, in the Australian tour. So that's how he came to be here.

RUBY:

Right. Okay. So we have a former Penthouse publisher bringing Farage on tour in Australia. It seems like an odd association. Can you tell me a little bit more about Damian Costas and this company Turning Point Australia?

KURT:

Yeah, so Costas is the head of Turning Point.

Archival tape -- Donald Trump:

“On behalf of my entire administration, thank you to everyone at Turning Point USA's Teen Student Action Summit. What a group.”

KURT:

That is really an Australian franchise of an American organisation that has the specific purpose of influencing young people trying to make these conservative values hip again.

Archival tape -- Woman:

“The old conservative movement can't come to the phone right now. Why? Because it's dead.”

KURT:

The head of the American wing is a guy called Charlie Kirk who's made misleading claims about Covid, big on those college campus culture wars, railing against faculty and that sort of what he would see as woke overreach.

Archival tape -- Charlie Kirk:

“In fact some people, some doctors think that masks actually make you sicker and have you less likely to be able to get oxygen and more likely to infect yourself and less likely to be able to fight the virus. And actually more likely to be able to die sooner. A lot people believe that..”

KURT:

And this is Turning Point’s first event, and when I was there Costas spoke and he said that he had formed Turning Point by using Farage as a broker for Charlie Kirk to initiate that connection so that he could license the name in Australia.
The night that was billed as an evening with Nigel Farage, is $89 for general admissions ticket, fair enough. But then it goes all the way to $1,250 for a private dinner and that sold out in Melbourne, in Sydney and in Brisbane, these three places that Farage will be speaking, and depending on the amount of tickets, we're starting to begin to talk about quite a lot of money. So there's always the question, which is how much of this is about influence and politics and how much of this is just about making money?

RUBY:

A crucial question. But before we get to that, can you tell me what it was like to actually go to this event that Nigel Farage spoke at? What was it like as you walked into the venue and what was the atmosphere as everyone prepared to watch Farage speak?

KURT:

Right. So, you know, people arrived and they trickled in in the beginning and there's really three groups of people. So there were the retirees who are there for a night on the town who'd been hearing about Farage from Sky News, where he's interviewed quite frequently. There's the sort of the keyboard trolls who are like sitting there and their eyes are darting around because they're not used to being in big, wide open spaces.

And then there's…the most interesting sort of group were the people that are dressed up like Fox News pundits and they're wearing these designer clothes and walking around shaking hands and kissing cheeks, and everyone there was quite excited. I started speaking with people and they were interested to hear someone speak their mind finally. And then we went in.

RUBY:

We'll be back after this.

[Advertisement]

Archival tape -- Paul Murray

“Nigel Farage joins us right here in the man cave. Great man. Welcome to Australia!”

Archival tape -- Nigel Farage

“Good to be here.”

Archival tape -- Paul Murray

“Oh, my great friend.”

RUBY:

So Kurt, what did Nigel Farage say to his Melbourne audience?

KURT:

First thing he said, he localised the introduction for Melbourne and he said, I must say I thought you'd be locked down forever. And everyone thought that was very funny. Next topic was the Queen and the values that she represented. And then he moved on to something that's really a generic conservative playbook, which is talking about, you know, we actually face a battle for the very existence of Western civilisation. You know, he's talking about these, these grand ideas of Western civilisation being under threat from woke culture and outside from Beijing and China and then, you know, dropping these conservative memes like there’s 70 genders and booing Greta Thunberg. And really the only thing he said that was really outside that playbook and outside just the most generic talking points of, you know, coming to a place like Melbourne was that he was talking about the Commonwealth and the idea that the Commonwealth with 56 countries that are in it, can be a bulwark against China, which is not an idea I've heard before, but you know, all the rest I'd heard.

Another interesting idea was how he took aim at Morrison, so there was a bit of localisation of his content there. He talks about Morrison as this failed conservative and how they're worse than the leftists. He likened Morrison to Boris Johnson and said that they get elected as conservatives, but rule as social democrats.

So there's this idea of deep, deep betrayal to their cause. And the big betrayals that Scott Morrison was cited as doing, and this wasn't just from Farage, but there was a speaker called Ross Cameron who introduced Farage, he criticised Scott Morrison and Damian Costas when he spoke - the idea of Scott Morrison as someone who betrayed because he signed up to net zero and really likening Scott Morrison to Boris Johnson as well, who also signed up to net zero, and this is this big betrayal of the conservative cause, which got everyone very enthusiastic.

RUBY:

Yeah that’s interesting, the conservatives who aren’t conservative enough are more of an enemy to someone like Nigel Farage than figures on the left. So Kurt, where did you get to on this question of whether this tour is a money making exercise, or an attempt to build political power? I mean I suppose it could be both, but do you get the sense that Farage is enjoying much political sway on this tour?

KURT:

I got the sense that he was being wheeled out much more as a celebrity. Now he is meeting, you know, Liberal senators. Alex Antic, you know, he's speaking with Pauline Hanson and Malcolm Roberts and he'll be doing it in the Brisbane date that he has scheduled for turning point, but also at CPAC. But I also think that there's not so much influence despite that and there's reasons for that, first of all that the landscape here in Australia is quite different from the UK or the US. We don't have a supranational entity that we can blame stuff on. You know, you can say the EU, but it's a bit of a stretch.

But we don't have the equivalent of the EU to say that we're losing national sovereignty or we're paying these exorbitant membership fees to be a part of. And so the idea that his core message can be brought in or adopted by someone like One Nation, I just don't think there's much relevance here. Much more so is that he can just be wheeled out and there can be sort of a prestige by association by which One Nation sharing the same platform can pick up on some of that previous success that Farage has enjoyed. But I think that's it.

RUBY:

But I suppose, even if Farage is just being wheeled out as this kind of celebrity figure that very right wing politicians see some advantage in being seen with, that is interesting because it does also show that there is this globalisation of the movement.

KURT:

I think it's quite interesting the fact that there is sort of a pre-Trump Farage who is against the EU. You know, he was very involved in this UK idea of fisheries and we don't have our own fisheries and these really, really local issues, you know, stoking them definitely towards a populist Right angle, versus the post-Brexit or post-Trump Farage who is looking at this like global conservative thesis that involves China, it involves connecting with the US, the UK, conservative groups all around the world and becoming part of this populist machine that creates these organisations and these local franchises of organisations like Turning Point or CPAC, which has its own chapter in Sydney where he’ll be speaking with Tony Abbott and a whole bunch of One Nation members and Alan Jones. And the idea that there's a local variant of these international organisations that can come into a country, access a common pool of talent, cross-promote over social media is a brand and it's really difficult, again, to see whether this is just a money making venture or something potentially a little bit more sinister in terms of political influence.

RUBY:

Kurt, thank you so much for your time.

KURT:

Thank you so much for having me.

[Advertisement]

[Theme Music Starts]

RUBY:

Also in the news today,

Former Victorian Premier and outgoing Hawthorn president Jeff Kennet has criticised Indigenous players who used to play for the club for speaking to an ABC investigation into racism at the club.

An external review commissioned by the club contained allegations key staff demanded the separation of young First Nations players from their partners and families, and pressured one couple to terminate a pregnancy. The club will not release the review publicly, but the author of it has described the trauma he uncovered as a “nightmare”.

And after referendums widely considered to be fraudulent in Russian-held Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has held a ceremony claiming to formally annex the territories and make them part of Russia.

The following day, Ukrainian troops seized the strategically important town of Lyman, one part of the country Putin had just declared would be part of Russia quote “forever”.

I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am. See you tomorrow.

[Theme Music Ends]