“You couldn’t make it up. Such a fraud.”
Nigel Farage has been ridiculed for claiming to a group of northern voters that he understands steelworkers because he previously worked in the “metals business”.
In a post on X, British journalist and former Labour Party senior adviser Tom Baldwin corrected Farage’s claim, making clear that Farage was a trader in the City.
Baldwin said: “Just watched the Home Counties private schoolboy Nigel Farage telling northern voters how he understands steelworkers because he used to work in the “metals business” himself.
“He was, ahem, a commodities trader at the London Metal Exchange in the City.”
Responding to the tweet, Labour MP for Dover and Deal Mike Tapp, said: “You couldn’t make it up. Such a fraud.”
Another user on X pointed out that Farage’s “metals business” failed.
A metals broker told the Financial Times in 2015: “This suggestion that he was a very wealthy man in the City is probably a bit of a misnomer.”
He added: “I don’t think he was anywhere near as successful as some people are portraying. He probably does better out of being an MEP.”
In 2003, Farage formed Farage Limited, a commodities broker, but in 2014 the business was still in the process of paying back £33,000 in taxes owed to HMRC. Farage remained a director of the company until 2011.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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