Nigel Farage, leader of the anti-EU UKIP party, says he does not think he would be very good as Prime Minister, and also confessed that his family would have preferred it if he had never gone into politics.
Mr. Farage said his political ambitions have come at great cost to his personal life. Regarding his relationship with his family, he explained that he could not pretend it was a normal one.
While describing the other party leaders as “vanilla”, he sees himself as the “marmite” candidate (you either love or hate him).
Mr. Farage said he chose the White Cliffs of Dover as the location for the interview because it symbolises his beliefs. (Image: ITV)
When asked by Kate Garraway on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, in what the channel described as “a frank interview”, whether he would make a good prime minister, Mr. Farage answered:
“I don’t think that’s my role in life. I don’t think I’d be very good at it either.”
Mr. Farage has been married twice. He married Gráinne Hayes in 1988, and had two sons with her, Samuel (born 1989) and Thomas (born 1991). In 1997 the couple divorced.
He married German national Kirsten Mehr in 1999, and had two daughters, Victoria (born 2000) and Isabelle (born 2005). He employs his wife as his parliamentary secretary.
Mr. Farage said:
“I had been married once before and it didn’t end very well but, then, that’s life, isn’t it? We have our ups and downs in life. Politics had begun to impinge and that did not help. Of that there is no question at all.”
“What I saw in her (his current wife) was somebody who was completely honest, with no particular side, who said pretty frankly what she thought and how she saw things and I quite liked that.”
“I mean to be honest with you, I think my whole family would rather I had never gone into politics, I’d stayed doing what I was doing, I can’t even pretend to have a normal family relationship at this moment in time because I don’t.”
When asked whether he had any regrets, he said people who have regrets and let them bother them are not living in the present.
Farage on immigration
He pointed out that he is not against immigration, but rather favours a properly regulated immigration policy. “If you control immigration sensibly and do it properly it can be a benefit to the country and it can enrich the culture too, no arguments about that,” he explained.
Mr. Farage pointed to how immigration had improved English food, which many years ago “was awful and going out was actually quite difficult.”